his own speculations he would hardly be able clearly to solve any one of the Phaenomena of this or that particular Passion for instance whence it is that Blushing is the proper sign of Shame Paleness the Character of suddain Fear Sadness the inseparable concomitant of Hate sic de caeteris In a word he would as soon be at a loss in tracing the intricate Labyrinth of Human Affections as a blind man that should undertake to give the Chorography of a whole Countrey meerly from a relation of some memorable action done in some part of it Nor should I believe such a man half so likely to temper and compose the tumults of his inordinate Passions as a skilful Anatomist who understands by what impressions they are occasion'd upon what parts of the brain those impressions are made what sympathy and confederation Nature has instituted between those parts and the Cardiac nerves how those nerves divided into innumerable fibres contract the ventricles of the heart and how that Contraction according to the various degrees of its force and velocity necessarily impells the blood more or less copiously and violently through the arteries into the parts most concern'd in the Passion at that time most urgent For certainly he that hath the advantage to understand all these things is better instructed to appease the impetuous Commotions at any time rais'd within his breast by reducing the rebellious appetites of his inferior Faculties to obedience to the contremands of his Superior or Reason in which one thing the summ of all Moral Philosophy consists and which advanced into a Habit becomes Virtue it self So that take the Counsel given by Apollo in which of the two senses ye like best viz. either as directing to learn the admirable frame of the Body or as intimating that wisdom consists chiefly in the regulation of the Affections still the study of Anatomy will be requisit to acquiring the Knowledge of Ones-self 2. Requisite it is also to conduct even a Naturalist to the Knowledge of GOD. I mean the knowledge of not only the Existence of a Supreme Being in the World but also of his Eternity omnipotent Power infinite Wisdom and inexhaustible Goodness for as to the Divine nature it self that we must all with holy astonishment confess to be to Human Understanding incomprehensible for how can a finite have an adaequate notion of an Infinite Most true it is indeed that there are in every part of the Universe certain marks or impresses of a Divine hand and the smallest Insect that creeps upon the earth the very grass whereon we tread yea even things Inanimate proclaim the Glory of their Maker inciting us to venerate praise and adore Him so that St. Paul preach'd true Natural Theologie to Infidels when he taught that the invisible things of God are known by the visible things of his Creation and Heraclitus gave a memorable hint of his piety toward the Summum Numen when inviting into his poor smoaky cottage some proud strangers that disdain'd to put their heads under so vile a roof Enter said he nam etiam hîc Dii sunt here also are Gods And in truth every page in the great Volume of Nature is full of real Hieroglyphicks where by an inverted way of Expression things stand for words and their Qualities for Letters Whence perhaps Plato in Timaeo took a hint of that sublime thought of his that the World is Gods Epistle written to mankind But if we survey the Epitome of the World the Temple of Mans Body in which as in a Model or Exemplar all parts of the Greater World are represented in little we shall there find something more august more Majestical Who can observe that so magnificent a pile is rais'd only è luto out of a little slime that from a few drops of the Colliquamentum or Genital humor of a substance Homogeneous or simple are formed more than two hundred bones more Cartilages very many ligaments membranes almost innumerable myriads of arteries and veins of nerves more than thirty pair with all their slender branches and continued fibres near upon four hundred muscles a multitude of glandules and many other parts all divers each from other in substance consistence colour texture fabric c. Who can I say observe this without being forced to acknowledg the infinite Power of the Divine Architect who makes the very Materials of his building Who can look into the Sanctum Sanctorum of this Temple the Brain and therein contemplate the pillars that support it the arch'd roof that covers and defends it the fret-work of the Ceiling the double membrane that invests it the resplendent partition that divides it the four vaulted cells that drain away impurities the intricate labyrinths of arteries that bring in from the heart rivulets of vital blood to heat and invigorate it the Meanders of veins to export the same blood the Aqueducts that preserve it from inundation the infinite multitude of slender and scarce perceptible filaments that compose it the delicate nerves or chords spun from those threds the original of that silver chord as Ecclesiastes calls it or Spinal marrow upon which the strength of back and limbs chiefly depends and many other parts of the wonderful Engine and not discern an infinite Wisdom in the design and construction of them And as for the infinite Goodness of God that is no less conspicuous in the connexion of so many and various instruments into one complex Automaton by which they are so admirably combin'd that every one works for it self and for the public at once that every one performs its peculiar office apart yet all co-operate to one and the same common end the subsistence safety and welfare of the whole and that if any one happen to be put out of order or tune all the rest sympathize with it and the whole Harmony of Functions is discompos'd Add to this stupendous Machine an internal Principle to give it life sense voluntary motion and understanding and then ye may say with Cicero Jam verò animum ipsum mentémque hominis rationem consilium prudentiam qui non Divinâ curâ perfecta esse perspicit is his ipsis rebus nobis videtur carere If then the admirable fabric of our Body demonstrates the Power Wisdom and Goodness of the Maker whom the Scripture most emphatically calls Yotzêr Hakkôl the Former of all things Jer. 10. 16. and if it be by the help of Anatomy alone that we come to contemplate and understand the excellency of that fabric we may safely conclude that to study Anatomy diligently and reverently is to learn to know God and consequently to venerate Him Deum enim colit qui novit After this what others out of ignorance may think or speak to the prejudice of this so useful Art of Dissection I am neither concern'd nor solicitous to know but this I openly declare that if I knew an Atheist if there can be such a Beast in the world I would
the same time the rest of the Blood in the Arteries remits its expansive Motion which was the other cause that hinder'd the Arteries from contracting themselves and those two impediments removed for that time the Fibres of the Arteries now prevail and by contracting themselves return to their middle posture of quiet by that contraction pressing the Blood forward on its Journey till it be impell'd into the substance of the Parts From whence after it hath done its Office it is soon forced to return toward the Heart through the Veins partly by more Blood flowing after and pressing it behind partly by the renitency and tonic Motion of the parts partly by the tension of the Muscles in the habit of the Body and in fine by the Pulsation of the Vena Cava which though but light is yet perceptible at its approach to the Heart where to that end it is furnisht with fleshy Fibres so that from thence Walaeus in Epist. de motu Sanguinis concluded that the circular Motion of the Blood beginn's from that part of the Vena Cava If I do not here particularly explain the reason and manner how each of these various Causes conduceth to the effect ascribed to their Syndrome or concurse it is because I presume that the whole History of the Circuition of the Blood with all its helps and circumstances is well known to the greatest part of my Auditors and because I hast to the FOURTH Act in the race of Life which beginns where the distribution of the Blood through the Arteries end 's and is the Communication of Life from the Blood distributed to all parts of the Body For these receiving the Blood impregnate with Original Life are thereby in a moment heated anew invigorated incited to expand themselves and made participant of Life Influent i. e. they are stirred up to the actual exercise of Augmentation or nutrition and of all other their Faculties And this Participation of Life is that vital Influx with so great Encomiums celebrated by Anatomists and the Heat of the Body both actual and vital and the general cause at least Sine qua non of all the noble Actions of the whole Body I say the General Cause because it is this influent Vital Heat that revives and stirrs them up to activity when without it all parts would be dull flaggy and torpid and yet notwithstanding it is not sufficiently able of itself to produce those Effects unless so farr forth as it is at the same time contemperated and determinated to this or that particular effect by that which some call the peculiar temperament and others the Spiritus insitus of that Member or Part whose proper Office it is to cause that effect For this vital Heat or general enlivening and invigorating influence operates one thing in the Liver another in the Spleen another in the Stomach and Gutts another in the Kidneys Sic de caeteris assisting and promoting the faculties of all parts so that no one can execute its proper function without it as the irradiation of the Sun is requisite to make the Ground fruitful and to excite the Seeds of all Vegetables lying in it and indeed this vital Heat is to Animals the Sun within them their Vesta perpetual Fire familiar Lar Calidum innatum Platonic Spark pepetually glowing not that like our common Fire it shines burns and destroys but that by a circular and incessant Motion from an internal Principle it conserves nourishes and augments first itself and then the whole Body Undè Entius noster in Antidiatribae pag. 6. in hunc finem extructum est cor quod calentis sanguinis rivulis totum corpus perpetim circumluit Cumque Plantae omnes à Solis benigna irradiatione vigorem vitamque adeo suam praecipùe mutuentur animalibus caeteris cordis calor innascitur unde tanquam à Microcosmi sole partes omnes jugiter refocillantur Ac propterea minùs placet quòd plantarum germen Corculi nomine indigitaveris Good reason then had our most Sagacious Harvey to sing so many Hymns as it were to this Sol Microcosmi that continually warms comforts and revives us Discoursing of the Primogeniture of the Blood in an Embryon Lib. de Generat Animal exercit 50. he falls into this elegant encomium of it Ex observatis constat Sanguinem esse partem genitalem fontem vita primùm vivens ultimò moriens sedemque animae primariam in quo tanquam in fonte calor primò praecipùe abundaet vigetque à quo reliquâ—â— omnes totius corporis partes calore influente foventur vitam obtinent Quippe calor Sanguinem comitatus totum corpus irrigat fovet conservat Ideoque concentrato fixoque leviter sanguine Hippocrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nominavit veluti in lipothymia timore frigore externo febrium insultu contingit videas illicò totum corpus frigescere torpere pallore livoreque perfusum languescere evocato autem rursum sanguine hui quam subitò omnia calent denùo florent vigent splendentque Nec jecur munus suum publicum exsequitur sine influentia sanguinis caloris per arteriam Caeliacam Imò vero Cor ipsum per Arterias Coronarias influentem unà cum sanguine caliditatem vitamque accipit Quippe nullibi est caloris affluentia citra sanguinis influxum per arterias Sanguis denique totum corpus adeo circumflùit penetrat omnibusque ejus partibus calorem vitam jugiter impertit ut Anima primò principaliter in ipso residens illiûs gratiâ tota in toto tota in qualibet parte ut vulgò dicitur inesse meritò censeatur In another place Exercit. 51. vindicating the Supremacy of it over all parts of the Body he breaks forth into this memorable expostulation Si Neoterici quidam verè dicant animalium semen coitu emissum esse animatum quidni pari ratione affirmemus animam esse in sanguine cùmque hic primò generetur nutriatur moveatur ex eodem quoque animam primùm excitari ignescere Certè sanguis est in quo vegetativae sensitivae operationes primò elucent cui calor primarium immediatum animae instrumentum innascitur qui corporis animaeque commune vinculum est quo vehiculo animae omnibus totius corporis partibus influit In a third place Exercit. 70. where he with cogent reasons refutes the vulgar error de calido innato he puts an end to all false notions and all disputes concerning that Subject and then concludes in these words Solus sanguis est calidum innatum seu primò natus calor animalis Habet profectò in se animam primò ac principaliter non vegetativam modò sed sensitivam etiam motivam permeat quoquoversum ubique praesens est eodemque ablato anima quoque ipsa statim tollitur adeo ut sanguis ab anima nihil discrepare videatur vel saltem substantiae cujus actus sit anima
with requisite Vigor endevor to expand themselves and then the Fever first invades as shall be more fully explicated when we come to examine the process of Fermentation in the Paroxysm of an intermittent Fever In the mean time it follows to be inquired wherein this Aptitude of the Fermentum Febrile to fix the Spirits of the Blood doth chiefly consist I conceive with Dr. Glisson that it is radicated in a certain Lentor or clamminess of the Crudities mixt with the Blood analogous perhaps to that viscidity observed in Wine and Beer not perfectly fermented which are therefore call'd Pendula or Ropy nor can they be ever corrected unless by a new Fermentation which exciting the oppressed and sluggish Spirits contained in the Liquor and dissolving the clammyness of the grosser Parts quickly clarifies it For what can be imagined more apt to Clog oppress and fix the Spirits of the Blood so as to hinder their expansive Motion than such a pendulous clamminess of Crude Humors diffused through the whole Mass of it I believe therefore that the formal reason of every febrile Ferment in putrid Fevers doth consist in such a Lentor of the Blood As for that kind of it that arises from defect of Concoction in the Stomach and that may therefore rightly enough be distinguished by the Name of Crude Chyle it seems not at first to be affected with the pendulous Clamminess here described but only with a certain disposition or tendency toward it by reason the Spirits of the Chyle have not been sufficiently excited and exalted from the State of Fixation to that of moderate fluxility as they ought to have been and yet this tendency may be sufficient by degrees to induce a clamminess upon the whole Mass of Blood when crudities are daily increased and accumulated as commonly they are before a Putrid Fever is generated Other kinds of it are almost all derived either from transpiration intercepted or from extravasation of Humors as in internal Apostems and in the Dropsy or from inflammations and tumors where the course of the Blood is stopt For part of the Blood so arrested and for want of due Motion corrupted being at length carried off by the Veins and remixt with the whole Mass thereof must of necessity more or less pollute it But if we convert the Eyes of our Curiosity upon the Effects of this febrile Ferment and consider the manner and process of its acting upon the Blood we shall soon find that what hath been said of the narcotic and fixative Power of it will be sufficiently consentaneous and evident to engage our Belief For from thence it will appear by what reason and way the Ferment is wont to exert its forces and exercise its tyranny upon the Vital Spirits in the divers times of a Paroxysm or fit of a Fever viz. in the begining or invasion in the augment or increase in the vigor or Achme and in the declination I say then that before the actual invasion of a Paroxysm the febrile Ferment is already diffused through the Blood and united with the vital Spirits Upon this it of necessity comes to pass that the Spirits being clogg'd and as it were inviscated by the pendulous clamminess thereof remit somewhat of their vigor and endevor to expansion and consequently with less briskness irritate the Ears and Ventricles of the Heart and Arteries conjoyned to them to contract themselves in order to the distribution of the Blood Hence it comes that the free transpiration of the halitus or steams of the Blood is more or less checkt and render'd more slow and weak than it ought to be And this makes the first insult or surprise of the Cold Fit which though scarcely perceptible in the beginning comes creeping on more and more till the Eclipse it brings upon the vital Spirits be manifest from the weakness and languid Motion of the Pulse and from the chilness of the whole Body and dead paleness of the Face c. A little after the Pulse is more retracted and languid and the Eclipse increasing the Nayles of the Fingers become pale and of a leaden Blew the extreme parts grow sensibly cold and all the other symptoms grow more strong and vexatious so that the Patient is now compell'd to feel the Attacque his Enemy is making upon the Guards of his Life And this is the second step of the cold Fit Which ceases not yet but is continued a good while after its first sensible Invasion the depression of the vital Spirits the retraction of the Pulse and the consequent diminution of Heat still by degrees increasing Nevertheless soon after the beginning the irritation of the vital Spirits to rise up and oppose their intestine Enimy and to repell it by their spontaneous expansion begins For first they strive to resist oppression by the clamminess of the febrile Ferment and to shake off the Clogg by their natural agility Then the Mass of Blood being slowly and heavily diffused into the parts of the Body doth in some degree stagnate in the Avenues of the Heart and by its resistence burden the Heart and Arteries and so incite them to make more frequent Pulses to discharge it Then the Effluvia of the Blood being by intercepted transpiration retained and by the Veins returned to the Heart serve somewhat to excite the Spirits and to discuss a little of the clammy Ferment repressing them But yet these three irritations conjoyned are not from the beginning of so great Moment as quickly to hinder the increase of the Cold or farther depression of the vital Motion only they so far avail as to hinder the influent Life from being wholly eclipsed And at this time it is that the first certain Signs of actual Fermentation of the Blood shew themselves to Physicians accurately observing them For so soon as the certain Signs of an universal oppression of the vital Spirits appear we may from that time date the commencement of the Fermentation immediately consequent thereunto because they declare that the Ferment hath already actually begun its Work These Signs and Symptoms then are as I have said first retraction of the Pulse chilness paleness and sometimes blewness of the extreme Parts chiefly of the Nayls tipp of the Nose and Lips and some light constriction of the whole Skin Because at that time there happens some oppression of the vital Heat which governs the Pulse renders all parts actually hot gives a vivid and grateful tincture of red to all and plumps up the Skin that otherwise would shrink itself up Secondly a troublesom Sense of Cold accompanied with a Horror trembling shivering or shaking All from the difficult passage of the Blood through the habit of the Parts For the Blood being but weakly emitted from the Heart and passing slowly through the substance of the muscular Parts hurts and offends them by vellication or attrition Thirdly a weak and quivering Voice and shortness of Breath for the most part trembling and unequal which seem to arise
partly from a depression of the vital Heat partly from Cold unequally affecting the Lungs and hindring the free ingress and egress of the Air and partly from the difficult passage of the Blood either through the Lungs themselves or through the Muscles helping to move them Fourthly the moisture of the Mouth and in the Glands circumjacent begins to be dried up and thereupon ensue thirst and driness of the Tongue The reason of which seems to be this that the Latex Serosus is in the febrile Fermentation so confounded with other Humors that it cannot be separated from them in the Glandules destined to the Secretion of it Other Effects or Signs of the Fermentation observable in this beginning of the Paroxysm I reserve till we come to the Augment in which they become more conspicuous In the AUGMENT therefore no new Motion arises only the former are either by degrees lessned or increased Those that belong to the simple depression of the vital Spirits are gradually diminished but those that are referrible to the incitation or suscitation of them are by little and little augmented Of the former sort are Chilness Sense of Cold shivering trembling quaking all which by degrees cease and vanish because upon the raising of the Pulse the Blood is transmitted more briskly and speedily through the habit of the Parts The Voice also becomes more strong and uninterrupt and the respiration more frequent and equal for the same reason On the contrary the provoked vital Spirits now rising up against their intestine Enimy cause a manifest increase of the febrile Fermentation and Tumult For the expansive luctation grows more and more fierce and exorbitant and recedes farther from the natural State till it becomes turbulent hostile and frothy and unequal The consequents of these irregular Motions are 1 inquietude jectigation and sometimes Pain of the outward parts but chiefly of the Head all from the difficult transmission of the Blood through them 2 Frequency of the Pulse and now and then robust vibration of the Heart and Arteries probably from the intercepted course of the Blood and the augmentation of Heat 3 Diminution of Transpiration which though now somewhat greater than from the beginning continues much less than it ought to be considering the abundance of Effluvia or exhalations of the Blood raised by the intense Heat 4 Greater Consumption of the Latex in all parts of the Mouth and consequently more grievous Thirst. 5 Nauseousness and sometimes vomiting or Flux of the Belly For the Stomach and Gutts are of all parts most troubled and offended by the tumultuose afflux of the Blood as well because of their nervose Texture and their exquisite Sense thence arising as by reason of the matters contained in their Cavity which the containing Parts being irritated fluctuate and so become more apt to be moved and ejected upward or downward and for the same Causes the same parts are often molested with Winds and Eructations all Pneumatic Fermentations in the number of which our febrile Fermentation hath a place conducing much to the generation of Winds During this time of the Paroxysm the Fermentation and Heat and all the consequents of them here recounted excepting perhaps the last are augmented by degrees till they arrive at the Achme or State But so soon as the Transpiration comes to be more free and answerable to the abundance of Exhalations steaming from the Blood so as they no longer recoyl by the Veins to increase the estuation of the Blood the Augment ends and the State of the fit succeeds In which the Fermentation and Ardor persist a while in their Violence and Fury And though at this time some parts of the oppressing Ferment begin to be discussed and expelled by laboriose Sweat yet the vital Spirits are by that tumultuose Motion so profusely spent and exhausted that nature suffers almost as much of loss by that exhaustion as she receives relief from the Victory and Expulsion Whence perhaps it comes that yet the conflict appears doubtful and equal till the beginning of the Declination when the febrile Heat and all its concomitants are by degrees mitigated And then it is that the Victory of the vital Spirits being complete the remaining parts of the febrile Ferment are by an universal Sweat flowing without any considerable detriment of the strength of the Patient dispersed and exterminated For this Sweat is a kind of despumation of the impurities of the Blood that caused the Paroxysm whereupon soon ensue a remission of the burning Heat a cessation of anxiety and Pains and a fresh diffusion of the Latex Serosus into the Throat and Mouth for the quenching of Thirst and in fine a Cessation of all other vexatious Symptoms of the late Conflict and so at length the Paroxysm is ended Now from this our congruous Solution of all the Phaenomena of the fit of a Fever ye may easily judge of the reasonableness of the precedent Hypothesis according to which I have endevored to explicate them and how far the same may deserve your approbation or dislike ¶ Nevertheless I am willing ye should suspend your Sentence till I have carried on the Hypothesis farther For there yet remain many other Appearances to be solved I proceed therefore to the primary DIFFERENCES of Fevers in hope that they also may be commodiously deduced from the same Principles Forasmuch as it is probable from what hath been said of the nature of a Fever in general that all Fevers arise from and essentially consist in a Fermentation of the Blood We may with reason infer that the diversity of Fevers how great soever it be proceeds from nothing else but the divers fermentations of the same Blood For the diversity of Effects is for the most part respondent to the diversity of efficients And since it is scarce possible but that from various Ferments various kinds of Fermentations should arise it necessarily follows that the various sorts of Fevers are to be deduced from equally various Ferments actually hindring the vital mication of the Blood And I hold that there are so many differences of febrile Ferments as there are divers Natures or Dispositions of Crudities incident to the Blood and apt to inquinate it To know all these distinctly and to explicate each of them by a particular discription is perhaps impossible so great is the variety of crude Humors that may be admitted into the Blood and so manifold the Combinations of them that may happen to pollute it Let it suffice then if reflecting upon the chief sorts of Crudities alredy described we shall from thence congruously derive the Primary i. e. the most frequently observed Differences of Fevers By Crudity I here understand any inquinament or depravation of the Blood whatsoever proceeding from defect of due preparation thereof for the generation of vital Spirits as I before declared Now the matter in this Sense Crude may be distinguished into Ordinary or familiar to human Nature such as arises from the erroneous use of
matter For whatsoever is superadded to the first rudiments of the parts ought certainly to be of the very same substance with what was praeexistent and so must consist ex congenere materia their renovation as well as first corporation being effected by Aggeneration or superstruction i. e. per Epigenesin So that from all these reasons put together it is constant that Nutrition is nothing else but Generation continued and as necessary to the conservation of every individual Animal yea every individual Plant also as Generation it self is to the conservation of the Universe Which our most sagacious Sr. G. Ent well understanding recommends to the belief of his Readers in these few but memorable words in Antidiatribae pag. 40. Nutritio sane videtur esse veluti continuata quaedam generatio quae est opus ideale ad exemplar primitivum actiones suas dirigens c. That I may both illustrate and confirm this Theorem give me leave to represent to you in a few lines the method and process of Nature in the formation of a Chick out of an Egg according to the most accurate Observations of Malpighius the summe of which is this From those Observations containing eight several acts of the Formative power it is highly probable 1. That the Spirit Plastic Virtue or Archeus call it by what name you please of the Egg lies dormant as it were and unactive for some time after the Egg hath been laied as if it expected the incubation of the Hen or some other warmth equivalent thereto to help it to exsert its power and begin the great work of building for it self a house according to the idea or modell prescrib'd by the Divine Architect whose instrument it is and that having obtain'd that requisite aid it soon acts upon the genital humor in which it is lodged by way of attenuation or eliquation that so the Matter may be made more fluid and obedient to its energy Which seems to be the first Act. 2. That this Spirit having drawn the first lines or threds of the solid parts of the Embryo and dispos'd them into their proper seats doth immediately after design certain wayes or passages by which those slender and delicate Stamina may be commodiously supplied with vital and nutritive liquors for their enlivening and nutrition and to that end mark out and appoint three Fountains as it were in the now more fluid Colliquamentum and thence deduce as many Canales or rivulets two of which are from their origine united and therefore somewhat greater one out of the first rudiments of each ventricle of the Heart not yet conspicuous because not coagulate but pellucid and a third consisting of many smaller rills flowing from the like rudiments of the Brain So that we may thence collect that the two former of these Canales are made to bring in the vital humor from the Heart the third to bring in the Succus Nutritius from the Brain to the first rudiments of the Chick and that in process of time those are turn'd into the Aorta and arteria Pulmonaris these into pairs of Nerves And this I take to be the whole work of the second Act. 3. Lest these so necessary fountains should by exhaustion fail the same Architect directed by divine instinct provides also for their perpetual supply To irrigate the Brain Rivulets are brought thither from the trunc of the grand canale of the Heart and to feed the current of the Heart three new streams are deriv'd to it one from the interior Lake or Colliquamentum a second from the exterior by the wayes of the Navill and a third from the yolk of the Egg by veins that by all these importing conduit-pipes fresh liquors may be continually deduced from the parts nourished into the Heart Which pipes are soon after compacted into veins either such as are design'd to bring back the Bloud or such as are ordain'd to convey the Chyle or the Lympha And this may be call'd the third Act. 4. 'T is evident that the same invisible Agent advances in the next place to distribute the vessels derived from the rudiments of the Heart viz. the Arteria Pulmonaris and Aorta first whole then divided and subdivided into branches still smaller and smaller till at last they dwindle into Capillaries and on the contrary to collect and by degrees unite all the rivulets that return from the Stamina of the solid parts to the Heart till they all meet and make a confluens in the single trunc of either the vena portae or vena cava For even common sense teaches us to call that the original or sourse of a Canale from whence the liquor which it conveys flows as every River is truely said to begin from its head or spring And Malpighius hath by the help of Microscopes observ'd and in his sixteenth and eighteenth Figures faithfully as I believe represented certain varicose veins lying in the Umbilical area or space not yet extended to either the Heart or Liver and therefore also not the Heart but the Stamina of the parts circumjacent ought to be reputed the Origin of the veins And this distribution of one sort of Canales and collection of another completes the fourth Act. 5. No less evident it is that from the beginning the Vital Nectar is clear and transparent and so remains till somewhat of the Yolk hath been mix'd with it For not only Malpighius but our equally curiose Dr. Glisson de ventriculo intestinis cap. 20. num 67. expresly affirms that he had seen bloud of a rusty colour in the coats involving the Embryo of a Chick before any the least signe of bloud could be discern'd in or about the Heart But this so early beginning of bloud may be ascrib'd either to the speedy excitation of the Spirits by the incubation of the Hen to whose heat those veins are somewhat nearer than the Heart is or to this that perhaps somewhat of a yolky tincture had preceded and caus'd that rusty or dark red However this beginning of Change in the Vital liquor from transparency to redness seems to be the fifth Act. 6. All the Canales just now describ'd being fix'd and open'd and the vital liquor exalted some degrees nearer to perfection the Plastic Spirit proceeds to finish the whole body so regulating its operations as to augment those parts first which ought to be first used and then to add to the dimensions of others whose use may be longer wanted without detriment And this slower work of accomplishing all parts by way of Nutrition and Augmentation may be accounted the sixth Act. 7. The same Architectonic Spirit as it spinns the first Stamina of all the solid parts so doth it gradually augment and complete them all out of one and the same homogeneous liquor viz. the Colliquamentum or spermatic humor clarified by Eliquation and this by transmuting the same into as many several forms as there are different kinds of similar Spermatic parts in the whole body
stick in the Pylorus and produce dismal torments and death a memorable example whereof is recorded by that excellent Anatomist Theodorus Kerckringius of Amstredam Spicilegii Anatomici observ 1. in a little Girl of five years of age who died of a stoppage of the Pylorus caus'd by a Dutch Stiver she had swallow'd which in her Ventricle open'd after her death was found so firmly to have plugg'd up the Pylorus that nothing could pass out by that door And this is all the shortness of my time would permit me to speak concerning the things chiefly remarkable in the Organization of the Ventricle viz. the situation the magnitude the number the figure and the two orifices thereof as well in genere as in specie ¶ We come in the next place to the visible Elements or SIMILAR parts whereof this so necessary Organ is compos'd Of these constituent parts some are Common also to other organs others Proper and peculiar to the Ventricle only To the former classis belong the vessels whether importing as Nerves and Arteries or exporting as Veins both sanguiferous and chyliserous to the later appertain the three Tunics with their fibres and parenchymata All which require to be describ'd and consider'd singly Which I therefore incourag'd by your patience and attention will endevor to do as briefly as is possible observing the same order in which I have now mention'd them The Nerves by which the Ventricle is made participant of sense and the invigorating influence of the brain are all deriv'd from one original viz. the sixth pair or par vagum For this pair of all others the most liberal distributes to the parts below the Midriff four principal branches from the anterior two of which proceed the two anterior and superior nerves of the Ventricle the left from the right branch the right from the left and the posterior branches call'd by Dr. Willis in Neurologia the Intercostals coasting along the spine of the back on each side descend to joyn with the superior plexus of the Abdomen and there uniting with some surcles of the anterior branches make a little nervose chord which connects the Renes succenturiatos or glandulas renales and from which as from a common stalk almost all other parts contein'd in the Abdomen receive their nerves Among the rest some surcles shooting forth from this complication and accompanying the Coeliac Arterie distribute themselves partly to the bottom of the Ventricle partly to the left prominency of it and partly to the spleen The Ventricle then being thus plentifully furnish'd with nerves and those too continued to the principal branches that send forth surcles to most other parts in the same great cavity contain'd it seems not difficult to conjecture that the remarkable consent and sympathy betwixt those parts and the Ventricle arises chiefly from that community of nerves nor to give a probable reason why vomitings usually accompany the Colic Hypochondriac winds and Hysteric fits the irritation being by continuity of the nerves easily propagated from one part to another The Arteries that continually bring in bloud and life to the Ventricle are reckon'd to be in number five each served by a vein to export the bloud after it hath done its office of heating cherishing and enlivening These Arteries and veins are call'd arteria vena pylorica arteria vena gastro-epiplotca dextra arteria vena gastrica from whence proceeds the coronary branch arteria vena gastro-epiploica sinistra and the vas breve arteriosum venosum All the divarications and branchings of which vessels discernable in the coats of a human ventricle artificially blown up are most accurately represented in the first table of Dr. Willis's Book intitled Pharmaceutice Rationalis whither for expedition sake I refer the unsatisfied mean-while commending to their notice three observables concerning these numerose vessels 1. That they all tend inwards and in their progress subdivided into innumerable spriggs smaller still and smaller till they dwindle into Capillaries are at last terminated in the inmost coat or nervose membrane of the Ventricle infecting the interior surface thereof with redness as if it were bloudshot Which will be conspicuous if after the Ventricle hath been blown up and dipt a little in boyling water it be turned the inside outward and the downy lining neatly separated for then the innumerable terminations of the arteries and veins will appear to cover the nervose membrane as with a bloudy nett 2. That their capillary surcles are equally dispers'd upon all parts of each Tunic as if their uses were thereby signified to be equal in all parts This also is apparent to sense for tho' all the three Tunics be white yet in living dissections wherever the Ventricle is prickt with the point of a needle there will be seen bloud to wooz forth 3. That the Arteries and Veins respectively official to them are exactly proportionate among themselves as well in the amplitude of their truncs as in the distribution of their branches and in the portion of the Tunic to which they are distributed so that the vein correspondent to each artery is adjusted to export as much bloud as the artery imports Whereas in most if not all other parts of the body the arteries are generally observ'd to be less than the reducing veins because in those the motion of the bloud is stronger and swifter in these weaker and slower This proportionate distribution is most clearly discernable in the branches of the Gastric vein and artery which in their Coronary divarications no less than in their turncs are exactly correspondent each to other The reason whereof according to the judgement of Dr. Glisson who seems first to have remarkt the thing may be because the arteries and veins have their origines near at hand and together and the three last have theirs from proportionate vessels the Splenic artery and vein not that they bring in any thing from the Spleen to the Ventricle as the Antients ignorant of the Circulation of the bloud erroneously held but that they are more commodiously derived from thence than they could be from any other vessel whatever the vicine situation of the Spleen consider'd The Venae lacteae of the Ventricle appear to be but few in comparison of the great multitude issuing from the Gutts Dr. Glisson tells us that those shew'd to him by Dr. Wharton in the Ventricle of a Dogg dissected alive were not many adding this description of them They took their original saith he from the bottom of the Ventricle and not far from thence supported by the anterior membrane of the Omentum or kell they were carried along to the greater Glandule thereof and after entrance into it they crept along the right margin of the Pancreas then sustain'd by the Mesentery they went on directly to the Common Receptacle and into that discharg'd their milky freight And this perfectly agrees with what I have more than once observ'd and can visibly demonstrate in living dissections
alternate Compression of them by the Diaphragme in inspiration by the Muscles of the Abdomen in exspiration Why then should not Anatomists be able by compression or any other way whatsoever to force the Chyle or other liquor injected through this Parenchyma or supposed Streiner I answer First that the Mechanic Ration of this Colatory being not yet for ought I know discover'd even by those curious Dissectors who have with the best Microscopes contemplated the texture of it I dare not pretend to understand the true reason of the difficulty objected Secondly that if I were permitted to declare my present conjecture concerning the same I should venture to say that the impediment to the manual expression of liquors out of the gutts into the Milky veins in Animals dissected alive may perhaps consist in one of these two things either that of the several causes or motions in the state of health and ease or indolency concurring to this complex and organic operation one or more is wanting and the Mechanism of the principal Organ the interior Membrane of the gutts altered and vitiated in the praeternatural and dolorose state of the Animal dissected or that by reason of the cruel torments the miserable Beast feels the Tone of the gutts becomes so strongly contracted and rigid as to be wholly impervious Which is the more probable because 't is well known that great and acute pain always irritates nervose and fibrose parts to contract themselves even to rigidity which is opposite to the gentle compliance and yieldingness requir'd to permeability Which may be one cause why Nature hath endow'd all Glandules ordain'd for Secretion with so little sense viz. lest otherwise being sensible of every light irritation they might be apt to shrink and condense themselves to the interruption and hinderance of their office And for Animals dissected after death I should guess that in them the Colatory of the Chyle is rendered impervious by Cold which by strong constriction or constipation shutts up all slender and inconspicuous passages of the body that had been kept open by the heat and motions of life But these are my private Conjectures as I have already declar'd offer'd rather to your examen than to your belief So is whatsoever I have said in this disquisition concerning the Distribution of the Chyle which I here conclude ¶ There remain yet two other Faculties of the stomach to be consider'd viz. the SECRETIVE by which it separates from the blood brought into its membranes by the Arteries a certain slimy and subacid mucus call'd pituita emortua dead Phlegm because the spirits thereof being exhausted it is of no further use to the blood and the EXCRETIVE by which it exonerates it self of that dead Phlegm of the sowre reliques of the food of its own decay'd Ferment and in fine of whatsoever else is unprofitable or offensive and that either upward by Eructation or by Vomit or downward into the intestines But because the explication of the Constitutions of the stomach upon which these Powers are chiefly founded and of the different motions and ways by which they are respectively executed is less pertinent and requisite to the short History of Nutrition at this time by me design'd than those precedent are upon which I have hitherto insisted and because the Sands in my glass are a good while since all run down therefore I find my self doubly obliged to pretermit the explanation of them lest I should at once both rove from my principal scope and further transgress the law of this Royal Colledge which hath set bounds to all Exercises of this kind when here perform'd By the later of which reasons I am hinder'd also from tracing the Chyle in the narrow obscure and anfractuose ways through which it passes before it can attain to the end of its journey and from observing particularly the Mutations it undergoes the Exaltation and Refinement it gradually acquires and the Secretion of its unassimilable parts made in Organs by Nature to that use ordain'd Let it therefore at present suffice if to gratifie the Curiosity of the Yonger Students of Anatomie I set before their eyes not an accurate Map but a rude Landskip of the Galaxy or Milky way in which the greater part of the Chyle glides along through the purple Island of the body to replenish the ocean of blood The Chyle being now as I said squeez'd out of the stomach and gutts into the slender pipes of the Venae Lacteae flows gently on in them from the Circumference toward the Centre of the Mesentery the precedent parts of it being necessarily pusht forward by the succedent ut unda undam pellit till it enter into certain Glandules there placed And this may be call'd the First stage of the Chyles progess through the Galaxy Extruded from thence partly by more Chyle crowding in partly by compression of the Glandules by the distended Midrif and contracted Muscles of the Abdomen it flows into the Common Receptacle or Cistern first discover'd by the Curiose and fortunate Monsieur Picquet and thence call'd by his name Which I accompt the Second stage or remove of the Chyle From the Common Receptacle which consisting of a membranose substance situate at the very root of the Mesentery upon the sphondyls of the Loins and filling up the space between the Muscles Psoae is incumbent upon the two long and fleshy productions of the Diaphragm the Chyle is transferr'd into the Ductus Chyliferus which running upward near the spine of the back and continued quite home to the Subclavian branches of the Vena Cava exonerate themselves into them and commix the Chyle with the blood and this also seems to be done by impulse or protrusion Because the two Productions of the Diaphragm lying immediately under the Common Receptacle cannot be distended as together with the Diaphragm they always are in every inspiration but they must force the Chyle therein contain'd to give way by ascending in the pipes that from thence tend upward after the same manner as in artificial fountains the water is mounted into pipes only by pressing the surface of that in the Cistern Perhaps the so often mention'd Compression of all parts included within the Abdomen by constriction of the Muscles thereof may not a little contribute to this Elevation of the Chyle which is the Third remove of it Next the Chyle by the said Subclavial veins brought into the Ascendent trunc of the Vena Cava is immediately imported together with the blood therein descending into the right ear and ventricle of the Heart Which by its Systole or contraction squeezes it into the Lungs where by their Reciprocations it is more perfectly mixt with the blood and whence it is devolv'd into the Left Ventricle of the Heart and finally thence squirted into the Arteries so soon as it hath receiv'd the form and name of blood Which is the Fourth and last stage of its journy at least of so much of it as is ordain'd
the Pulse of the Heart and Arteries 3 Distribution of the Blood by virtue of that pulsation 4 Communication of Life to all parts of the Body by means of that distribution and 5 Reduction of arteriose Blood to the state of Venose the exhalations of it being first partly consumed partly condensed and absorp't into the Lympheducts Of each of the Acts we must particu-larly enquire The FIRST Act viz. the Generation of Original Life in the Blood it self seems to be perform'd in this manner The vital Spirit rector of the Blood by its own natural force and expansive energy endevors to exagitate and expand the Blood now again brought into the Ventricles of the Heart while the grosser parts of the Blood by their nature more sluggish and unactive resist and hinder that endevor to expansion From this resistence or checking instantly arises a certain Colluctation or mutual striving between the expansive motion or endevor of the vital Spirits on one part and the renitency of the grosser parts of the Blood on the other And from this Colluctation an actual Heat is quickly excited or kindled in the Blood actual Heat being nothing else but an expansive Luctation of the Particles of the Body or Subject in which it is as the illustrious Lord Chancellor Bacon hath with admirable sagacity from many instances collected in historia calidi in novi Organi Pag. 218. Seeing therefore that this motion of the Blood consisteth in the expansive endevor of the Spirits and the reluctation of the other parts of it this Motion consequently is actual Heat But because this expansive Luctation is not hostil or noxious but Amicable Benign and tending not only to the conservation of the Blood but also to the exaltation of all its Faculties and Operations and because it comes as I said a little before from within from the Spirit conteined in and ruling the Blood therefore the Motion or Heat thence resulting is also Vital For in that very expansive motion of the Blood doth the formal reason of Life originally consist This being a Theorem not a little abstruse and of very great Moment chiefly to Physicians 't is requisite I should endevor both to clear and establish it That I may do so I begg leave to set before you a short Series or Train of certain Propositions of which the subsequent depending like the Links of a Chain upon the antecedent they may at length convince you of the Truth from thence to be concluded PROPOS I. The Heat is only Motion THe verity of this is apparent 1 From Flame which is perpetually and violently Moved 2 From the like agitation of all parts of servent or boyling Liquors 3 From the incitation and increment of Heat caused by Motion as in blowing up Fire by Bellows or Winds 4 From the very extinction of Fire and Heat by all strong compression which arresteth the Motion thereof and instantly causeth it to cease 5 From hence that most Bodies are destroyed at least sensibly altered by all Fire and by strong and vehement Heat which introducing a Tumult Perturbation and rapid Motion upon their parts by degrees totally dissolves the cohesion or continuity of them Nevertheless this Proposition is to be understood with due limitation or as it stands for the Genus of Heat not that Heat generates Motion or that Motion generates Heat always tho both these be in some things true but that Heat it self or the very essence of Heat is Motion and nothing else yet a certain peculiar sort of Motion or limited by the differences to be subjoyned PROPOS II. That Heat is an Expansive motion by which a Body strives to dilate it self and recede into a larger space than what it before possessed THis also is evident 1 In Flame where the Fume or Fat Exhalation manifestly widens itself and spreads into Flame 2 In all boyling Liquors which sensibly swell rise up and emit Bubbles still urging the process of self-dilation untill they become more extense and are turned into Vapor or Smoke or Aire 3 In Wood and all other combustible matter set on Fire where is sometimes an exudation of moysture alwaies an evaporation 4 in the melting of Metals which being most compact Bodies do not easily swell and dilate themselves and yet the Spirit of them being once excited by Fire begins instantly to dilate itself and continues to push away and drive off the grosser parts till their coherence being interrupted they become liquid and if the Heat be more and more intended it dissolves and converts much of the fixed Metal into a volatil Substance Gold only excepted 5 in a Staff of Wood or Cane which being heat in hot Embers becomes easily flexible a sign of internal dilatation 6 In Aire above all things which instantly and manifestly expands itself by a little Heat 7 In the contrary nature of Cold which contracts most Bodies forcing them into narrower spaces and shrinking their dimensions so that in extreme Frosts Nayls have been observed to fall out of Doors and Vessels of Brass to crack with many other admirable effects of great Cold noted by the Honourable Mr. Boyl in his most accurate History of Cold. So that Heat and Cold though they do many actions common to both are yet è diametro contraries in this that Heat gives a Motion expansive and dilating but Cold gives a Motion contractive and condensing PROPOS III. That Heat is a Motion expansive not uniformly through the whole Subject but through the lesser Particles thereof not free but checkt hinder'd and repulsed or reverberate So that the Motion becomes interrupt alternative perpetually trembling and striving and incited by that resistence and repuls Whence comes the Fury of Fire and Heat pent in and opposed in their Expansion OF this we have instances 1 In Flame boyling Liquors melted Metals glass Furnaces c. all which perpetually tremble swell up and again subside alternately 2 In Fire which burns more fiercely and scorches more ardently in frosty Weather 3 in common Weather-glasses in which when the Aire is expanded uniformly and equally without impediment or repuls no Heat is perceived but if you hold a Pan of burning Coals near the bottom and at the same time put a Cloth dipped in cold Water upon the top the check and repuls thereby given to the expansion of the Aire will cause a manifest trepidation in the Water and intend the borrowed Heat of it 4 In Winds pent in which though they break forth with very great violence so that their motion must needs be extremely rapid and dilating do not yet from thence conceive any sensible Heat because the motion is in all the particles of them equally and proceeds uniformly without check or interruption whereas in the burning Wind from thence called by Aristotle in Meteor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great heat seems to be generated from the frequent repulses and repercussions of its rapid Motion insomuch that it scorches where it blows chiefly in narrow
delivers the first into a free injoyment of her essential immortality but dissolves the latter into the Elements or matter of which it was composed is an opinion very antient highly consentaneous to reason and defended not only by many eminent Philosophers as well antique as modern but even by some Divines of great learning Piety and Fame among whom I need name only Gassendus of the Roman and Dr. Hammond of our Church The former of which hath professedly asserted it in Physiologia Epituri cap. de Animae sede the other in Notes on the 23. Verse of the 5 Chap. of St. Pauls first Epist. ad Thess. Where interpreting these Words of the divinely inspir'd Author 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 integer vester spiritus anima corpus he conceived that the Apostle divides the whole Man into his three constituent parts viz. the Body which comprehends the Flesh and Members the Sensitive or Vital Soul which is common also to Brutes and the Spirit by which is denoted the reasonable Soul originally created by God infused into the Body and from thence after death to return to God and this his exposition he confirms by agreeing Testimonies of many Ethnic Philosophers and some antient Fathers Much more I should here have said in defence of this opinion had I not thought it less labour to direct the unsatisfied to a little Treatise intitled a Natural History of the Passions publish'd about three Years past where the Author professedly handles it Now if either of these two recited opinions be granted to be true and 't is no easy task to refute either of them then both my positions that occasioned my recital of them may be also true and so the supposed inconsistency of them solved Presuming then that what I have said concerning the First Act of the Blood or the Generation of Original Life in the Blood and the manner how it is performed is probable and sufficient to explicate the Theorem I here conclude my discourse of it ¶ The SECOND Act of the Blood in the race of Life is the Excitation of the Motion or Pulsation of the Heart and Arteries which seems to be done in this manner The Blood descended partly out of the Trunc of the Vena Cava partly from the Arteria Venosa into the Ears or Portals of the Heart and there beginning its expansive motion fills them even to distention and by that distention irritates or incites their Fibres which are numerose and strong to contract themselves by the motion of Restitution By this constriction of the Fibres on all sides the cavities of the Ears of the Heart are necessarily closed or streightned and by consequence the Blood newly admitted into them is sequeez'd out into the two Ventricles of the Heart forcing the Valves called Tricuspides or Trisulcae which are seated at the Gates or Mouths of the Ventricles and open from without inward to open themselves and give way The Blood thus propuls'd into the Ventricles of the Heart and somewhat increasing or intending its expansive Motion fills them even to distention and to the shutting of the Valves which it so lately open'd so that at that time no more Blood can be admitted nor what is admitted recoyl or return by the Wicket through which it enter'd The Ventricles of the Heart being thus filled and distended and by virtue of their Fibres spontaneously contracting themselves into a much narrower compass strongly compress the Blood contained in them and force it to thrust back three other Valves call'd Sigmoides which open outwards and to rush forth partly into the Venae Arteriosa leading it into the Lungs from the right Ventricle partly into the Aorta or great artery from the left By this constriction of the two Ventricles of the Heart which is their proper and natural Motion the Circulation as they call it of the Blood is chiefly effected that Blood which is out of the right Ventricle express't through the Vena Arteriosa into the Lungs being impell'd forward till it arrive in the Arteria Venosa that brings it into the left Ventricle and that which is expell'd from the left Ventricle into the great Artery being by the Branches thereof distributed into all the parts of the Body The Blood being in this manner squirted out and the irritation ceasing the Ventricles instantly restore themselves to their middle position and make way for the reception of more Blood from the Ears of the Heart as before and then being by the Influx and expansive Motion thereof again distended and irritated repeat their Constriction and thereby eject it and this reciprocation or alternate dilatation and constriction or Diastole and Systole of the two Ventricles of the Heart together with the Arteries continued to them is what we call their Pulsation and the grand cause of the perpetual Circuition of the Blood as the alternate expansion and repression of the Spirits during that pulsation is that motion which Dr. Glisson first named the Mication of the Blood comprehending the double motion in that single appellation The Blood then it is that alone excites the Pulsation of the Heart and Arteries by distending them not by reason of any actual Ebullition or any considerable Rarifaction it undergoes in either of the Ventricles or in their avenues but as I humbly conceive merely by its quantity rushing in Not by Ebullition or Effervescence as Aristotle who gave it the Name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 believ'd 1 Because no ebullition of any Liquor whatsoever proceeding either from external Heat or from intestine Fermentation is constantly equal or uniform whereas the Pulse of the Heart and Arteries and consequently the motion of the Blood that causeth it is in Men healthy temperate and undisturbed by Passion constantly equal or of the same tenor and rhythm 2 Because the greater the Ebullition of the Blood the greater would be the pulsation of the Heart but in burning Fevers though there be a very great effervescence of the Blood arising from an extraordinary effort of the vital Spirits contending against oppression by the putrefactive or febrile Ferment yet the Pulse most frequently is low and weak as Galen himself observed 3 Because in living dissections if either of the Ventricles of the Heart or the great Artery be pierced with a lancet pure and florid Blood indeed will spring from the Wound in every Systole but not frothy not boyling nor meteorized nay not to be by any sign of difference distinguished from Blood at the same time emitted from the Vena Cava of the same Animal An Argument certainly of itself sufficient to subvert the Ebullition of the Blood in the Ventricles of the Heart excogitated by Aristotle at least if he were Author of the Book de Respiratione vulgarly ascribed to him to solve the Phaenomenon of the Pulse and to this day obstinately defended by many learned men seduced by the Authority of his great name 4 If the Blood suffer'd any such Ebullition an immersion or
plunging of the Body into cold Water would depress and calm it and consequently repress the motion of the Heart but the experience of divers attesteth the contrary For these reasons therefore among many others here for brevities sake omitted I reject the supposed Ebullition of the Blood passing through the Ventricles of the Heart I reject also the suddain and impetuose Rarifaction attributed to it by the greatest of Aristotle's Rivals Monsieure des Cartes and strenuously propugned by Regius and others his Disciples For 1 If you open the Thorax of any more perfect Animal alive and while the Heart yet continues to beat strongly thrust an incision Knife into either of the Ventricles or into the great Artery the Blood thence issuing will not appear spumose or rarified at all but indistinguishable from Blood taken out of the Vena Cava just at its entrance into the right Ear of the Heart 2 If you cut out the Heart itself and squeez out all the Blood conteined in it you shall observe it to vibrate itself a little and to continue the rhythm of its Pulses till it be grown cold and this not from Blood rarified for now there remains none within its Ventricles but most probably from the reliques of the vital Spirits which yet inhering in the Fibres and little Pullies of the Heart are the cause that they alternately contract and relax themselves 3 The musculose Flesh of the Heart is of a contexture too firm and solid to be inflated by a little Froth and a greater force is requir'd so nimbly to agitate so massive and ponderose a Machine 4 If the Blood were so impensly rarified in both the Ventricles of the Heart doubtless the Orifices both of the Vena Arteriosa and of the Aorta ought to be much larger because the rarified Blood would require more of space to its egress than to its ingress 5 There would arise a confusion of the motion of the Heart and its Valves for the diastole of these would be coincident with the diastole of that which would annihilate the use of the Valves both which are repugnant to experience and to the institute of Nature 6 No reason why the Blood should be pufft up by great rarifaction in the Heart only that it may sink and be condensed again so soon as it is thence emitted into the Arteries for what use can there be of the supposed rarifaction which the very next moment ceaseth These then are the reasons that hinder me from believing that a drop or two of Blood can be by the heat of the Heart so extremely rarified as to replenish and distend the Ventricles thereof when the Cavity of the least of the Ventricles in a Man of middle Age and Stature will easily contein according to Harvey's accompt two Ounces much more according to Lower's lib. de corde cap. 3. and when I am fully convinced that in the State of Health and Quiet the whole mass of Blood is transmitted through the Heart at least thirteen times in the space of an Hour supposing no more than 2000 Pulses in that time which would be impossible if only a few Drops were received into each Ventricle in every Diastole and expel'd again by the following Systole For evident it is even to Sense that in the Diastole both Ventricles of the Heart are filled with Blood even to distention so that if you feel them at that time with your Hand they will be found tense and hard and that by the Systole all the Blood receiv'd is express'd the Sides being then strongly drawn together and the Cone pull'd up toward the Basis so that little or no room can be left within to contein Blood If you open an Eel or Viper alive you may observe the Heart to become white in the Systole because all the Blood conteined in it is then squeez'd out and red again in the Diastole from new Blood admitted and filling it Nor are we to doubt but the same happens in the Hearts of greater Animals also though the Parenchyma or muscular Flesh of the Heart be in them so thick as to hinder the Eye from discerning the like alternate change of Colours in their constriction and dilatation Taking then the total Repletion of the ventricles in every Diastole and the total Exinanition of them by every Systole for granted and Supposing that in a Man of a middle size each of the Ventricles of the Heart conteins about two ounces of Blood when it is fill'd and that the Pulses of the Heart made in the space of an Hour exceed not the number of 2000 which yet is the lowest computation I have hitherto met with among Anatomists it will necessarily follow that no less than 4000 Ounces of Blood are transmitted through the Heart in the space of an Hour which amount to 332 Pints at 12 Ounces to the Pint whereas the quantity of Blood contein'd in the Body of a Man of a Sanguine complexion tall Stature and plentiful Diet is not allowed by accurate Anatomists to exceed 25 Pints at most Let us therefore grant our Man to have that proportion of 25 Pints to be transmitted through his Heart by 2 Ounces at every pulsation and the consequence will be that the whole Mass of his Blood must pass and repass through his Heart thirteen times in the space of an Hour or else the pulsation of his Heart and his Life too must cease for want of Blood to continue the Motion But since few Men have either so much Blood or in the state of Health so few Pulses as we have now supposed 't is highly consentaneous that in most Men all their Blood runs through the Heart oftner than thirteen times in every Hour Now to come to the scope or use of this Computation if only a few drops of Blood rarified be transmitted through the Heart of a Man at every Pulse 2000 pulses could not transmit so much as a fourth part of 25 Pints in an Hour and in the mean time all the rest of it must stagnate and grow cold and then what would become of his Life which depends upon the actual Heat and perpetual Circuition of the Blood This argument certainly is if not apodictical yet morally convincing that Monsieur des Cartes his opinion of the impense Rarifaction of the Blood in the Ventricles of the Heart is manifestly erroneous There remain's then nothing to which the Diastole of the Ventricles of the Heart can be reasonably attributed but the Quantity of Blood flowing into and distending them For the substance of the Heart being as well without as within Musculose Robust Thick and intertext with Fibres of all orders or positions and furnish't also with fleshy Columnes which being commodiously placed in the Ventricles help much to the constriction of them so soon as the Blood flowing in hath distended them they being thereby irritated instantly begin to contract themselves by that contraction girding in the Ventricles and squeezing out the Blood After the same
manner that the Stomach Gutts Bladder Womb c. membranose and fibrose Cavities of the Body when they are above measure fill'd and distended do by spontaneously constringing themselves forcibly expell whatever irritates them And that in every Diastole of the Heart Blood rushes into the Ventricles in a quantity sufficient to distend them seems inferrible even from this that it is abundantly brought in both by the Vena Cava and by the Arteria Venosa and that it is continually driven on thitherward partly from the habit of the Body by the tonic motion of the parts partly from the Lungs by help of their motion according to the fundamental Laws of its Circuition But why do I insist upon Reasons when an easie Experiment offers itself to determine the Question In a Dog opened alive if the two Vessels that bring Blood into the Heart namely the Vena Cava and Arteria Venosa be girt with Ligatures so that the course of the Blood be there intercepted the Ventricles by three or four Systoles emptying themselves their orderly pulsation will cease only a little undulating Motion and irregular vibration will thereupon immediately succeed and upon solution of the Ligatures and influx of Blood the Heart will instantly repete its pulsation I conclude therefore that the Blood causeth the Dilatation of the Heart not by its Ebullition nor by its Rarifaction but only by its replenishing and distending the Ventricles thereof and that the Heart by its spontaneous constriction expresses the Blood into the Lungs and great Artery and so the motion of both is perpetuated I admit nevertheless a certain gentle and pacate expansive Motion of the Blood to be excited in the Ears and Ventricles of the Heart as necessary to the generation of Original Life though not of force sufficient to move the whole Machine of the Heart For the vital Spirits in the Blood though brisk and vigorose in their endevor to expansion chiefly when they are agitated by the motion of the Heart are notwithstanding somewhat checkt and repulsed by the reluctancy of the grosser Particles of the Blood and therefore it cannot be imagined they should suffice to dilate the Heart also I admit also a constant invigoration of the Fibres and fleshy Columns or Pullies of the Heart by a continual Influx from the Brain that they may the more expeditely and strongly and without lassitude perpetuate the Systole of the Heart For that such an Influx is necessary every Moment to recruit their Vigor and conserve the due firmness of their tone is evident from this singular Experiment If the Nerves of the eight pare be constringed closely by ligatures in the neck of a Dog ye will admire what a suddain and strange mutation will thereupon ensue The Heart which before performed its motions moderately and regularly will instantly begin to tremble and palpitate and the poor Animal will labour of anxiety and extreme difficulty of breathing while the ligatures continue on the Nerves above but upon removing them all those dismal Accidents which are perhaps to be ascribed to the surcharge of the Heart and Lungs by Blood not so fast discharged as it is imported and that by reason the Systoles are rendred weak and languid the influx from the Brain that should invigorate the contracting Fibres and Pullies being intercepted all the Accidents I say will foon cease and the Heart renew its pulsation as before To this Anatomic Experiment I might have added Arguments of the same importance drawn from the Palsie and Convulsions to which the Heart itself is liable had not the industrious Dr. Lower Author of the alleged experiment prevented me lib. de motu cordis cap. 2. and were I not conscious that I have staid too long upon the cause and manner of the Excitation of the Pulsation of the Heart and Arteries or second Act of the Blood in the race of Life ¶ Proceed we therefore to the THIRD viz. the Distribution of the Blood into all parts of the Body which is an act wholly Mechanic and to be attributed to the Systole of the Heart and Arteries thereto continued To the Constriction of the Heart because the Blood contained in the right Ventricle is thereby of necessity express'd into the Vena Arteriosa and so into the Lungs and that in the left is thence expell'd into the great Arterie and driven on through the Branches thereof into all the parts of the Body Nor can it seem strange that this Constriction of the Heart should be effected with force sufficient to impell the Blood in a continued stream through the Pipes of the Arteries till it arrive at the extremities of them yea till it enter into the very substance of the parts in which they are terminated For if we attently consider 1 the structure of the heart that it is a Muscle of a substance Solid thick and firmly compacted every where intertext with various Fibres and corroborated within with fleshy Columns and fibrose Pullies and of a Figure fit to perform vigorose Motions 2 that if you put your Hand upon the Heart of any large Animal open'd alive you shall find it hard and tense not easily yielding to the Gripe and if you thrust a Finger into either of the Ventricles you shall feel it to be with great violence girt and pincht by the Systole thereof 3 that if you pierce the great Arterie neer the Original of it with a Lancet the Blood will be in every contraction squirted thence with incredible impetuosity and to great distance 4 that in some Men the Heart invaded by Convulsions hath vibrated itself with such stupendous Force that the very Ribbs have been thereby broken as the observations recorded by Fernelius Hollerius Forestus and Carolus Piso attest 5 that in Horses and Doggs after they have run the beating of their Hearts may be plainly and distinctly heard to a considerable distance If I say we consider these things we shall soon be induced to believe that the Systole of the Heart is more than sufficient to impell the Blood to the extreme arteries And as for the spontaneous Constriction of the Arteries that also must needs contribute somewhat to the Pulsion of the Blood by less'ning the Pipes through which it flows Remarkable it is that the Contraction of the Arteries is not Synchronical or coincident with the contraction of the Heart For the Systole of the Heart is perform'd in the time of its contractive Motion and the Diastole in the time of the remission thereof but on the contrary the Diastole of the Arteries is perform'd when they endevor to contract themselves and their Systole when they remit that endevor The reason is because the exclusion of a sufficient quantity of Blood out of the Ventricles of the Heart being perform'd the first cause that impugned the contraction of the Arteries viz. their distention by that Blood rushing into them instantly ceases and the three Semilunar Valves are shut to prevent the regress of it and at
aestimari debeat These remarkable texts I have recited not to prolong my discourse but to confirm whatsoever I have said of the generation of Life original in the Blood and of the communication of influent Life from the same Blood to all parts of the Body that so I might with more assurance leave this fourth Act of the Blood fully explain'd and pass to the ¶ FIFTH and last Which consisteth in the dffusion of the exhalations of the Blood raised by the expansive Motion or actual Heat of it and which reduceth it from the State of Arteriose Blood to that of Venose For the Blood newly impregnate with Life and kept a while in restraint by the thick Walls of the Heart and firm Coats of the Arteries no sooner arrives at the habit of the parts but instantly it begins to disperse its more volatile Particles in Steams or Exhalations and those being diffused it becomes calm and sedate and is in that composed condition transferred into the capilray Veins to be at length brought again to the Heart Of these Exhalations the more subtil and fugitive part exspires into the Aire by insensible transpiration the rest striking against membranose and impervious Parts or perhaps against the very Parenchyma of them is stopped and repercuss'd and condensed into a Dew Which after it hath moistned the parts is by their tonic motion squeez'd into the Lympheducts and by them carried off toward the Centre of the Body In the mean time the Blood after this manner calmed and recomposed returns quietly and slowly toward the Heart therein to be quickned heated and impregnated anew by the expansive Motion of its Spirits being driven on all the way by more Blood continually following and pressing it and by other concurrent Causes by me a little before particularly mentioned And this I believe to be the manner and reason of the perpetual Circuition of the Blood during Life Now reflecting upon the five Acts of the Blood described in the circular Race of Life the Sum of all my perplex and tedious disquisition concerning it amounts to no more but this That the Mication of the Blood proceeds originally from the expansive motion of the Spirits of it somewhat restrain'd and repulsed by the gross and less active parts and incited by that opposition that from this Mication Life Original is as it were kindled in the Blood passing through the Heart that Life influent is communicated to all parts of the Body from the Blood transmitted to them through the Arteries and from the union of the vital Spirits contain'd in the Blood so brought into them with the Spiritus insitus of every part that receives it that to that noble end Nature hath ordained that the Blood should be speedily distributed to all parts through the Arteries by the Heart spontaneously contracting itself and so soon as it hath done that its grand Office of reviving them and diffused its exhalations be brought back again to the Heart therein to conceive vital Heat anew and in fine that the Life of all Animals depends immediately or primarily upon the regular Mication and next upon this perpetual Flux and reflux of the Blood by the glorious Inventor of it Dr. Harvey rightly called not the Circulation but CIRCUITION of the Blood Quòd ejus semper redeat labor actus in orbem How probable these things are Ye who are Philosophers and Anatomists have indeed a right to Judge but ye must pardon me if I adventure to say that ye have no right to Judge whether they be true or not For what Seneca Natural Quaest. lib. 7. cap. 29 with great Wisdom and Modesty spake of his own reasonings about the nature and causes of Comets may be with equal reason applied also to mine concerning Life which in more then one thing resembles a Comet viz. Quae an vera sint Dii sciunt quibus est scientia veri Nobis rimari illa conjecturâ ire in occulta tantum licet nec cum fiducia inveniendi nec sine spe Huc item referri potest quod Atheniensis hospes respondebat Clinio apud Platonem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vera haec esse approbare cùm multi de iis ambigant solius Dei est If you grant them to be consentaneous to right reason and observations Anatomic I may then not impertinently conclude this Disquisition with the same Sentence with which my Master Gassendus is said to have concluded his Life Quantula res est vita hominis ¶ EPILOGUE AUGUSTUS ye know notwithstanding he had long enjoyed whatever the greatest part of mankind calls Happiness could not yet when dying afford to call Human Life by any better Name than that of a Comedy or Farce asking his Friends that stood by him Ecquid iis videretur mimum vitae commodè transegisse And that this Farce consisteth of five natural Acts too I have endevored in my precedent Discourse to evince Why then may not ye expect that I should in keeping of Decorum so far persue this double Analogie as to my short History of Life to subjoyn an Epilogue Supposing therefore that ye do I hold myself obliged to add one such as seems to me to be neither indecent nor impertinent It shall be a short History or Tale call it whether ye please Written by Philostratus in lib. 4. cap. 16. de vita Apollonii Tyanei Which I through hast forgot to touch upon in its due place and in which there occurrs more than one thing worthy to be remarked Be pleased then to hear first the Story itself in the Authors own Words and then my brief reflections upon the things therein chieflly considerable The Story is this The things I thence collect are these 1. That the Maid was not really Dead but only seemed to be so and consequently that the raising of her by Apollonius was no Miracle For the Author himself though in the first Line so bold as to call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Miracle is yet so modest in the second as to render it doubtful by these Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Virgo mori visa est the Maid seemed to be Dead i. e. She was not really Dead and after in his Philosophical descant upon the act of her resuscitation in these Utrum verò scintillam animae in ipsa Apollonius invenerit quae ministros medicosque latuerat an decidens forte pulvia dispersam penè jam extinctam animam calefaciens in unum congregaverit difficile conjectatu est Which is a plain confession that probably she was only in a Swoun because the Rain that fell upon her Face might raise her 2. That 't is probable the Maid lay intranced from a violent fit of the Mother For this terrible Accident invaded her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the very Hour of her Marriage a time when Virgins commonly are most prone to have their Blood and other Humours violently agitated by various Passions which many times cause great commotions
have imagin'd to be made by the activity of the Vital Heat If it be objected that in many diseases the habit of the body is wont to be very much extenuated we are provided of a double answer First That extenuation seems to proceed rather from a meer subsidence or flaccidity of the Musculous flesh for want of bloud and the nourishing juice to fill and plump it up than from any great deperdition of the substance of the fibres of which the Muscles are mostly made up otherwise such decayes could not be so soon repair'd as we observe them to be in the state of convalescence Secondly Whatever be the cause of the extenuation objected it impugns not our present supposition which extends not beyond the natural and ordinary depraedation made by the Vital Heat in the state of Health And as for the Manner how the bloud spirits and other fluids and if ye please to have it so also the less fixt and more easily exsoluble particles of the solid parts are consum'd by the Vital Heat this may be sufficiently explain'd by the familiar example of oyl consum'd by the flame of a Lamp Whether we take fire or flame to be a substance luminose and heating or conceive it to be only a most violent motion of globular particles in its focus most certain it is that it consisteth in a perpetual fieri i. e. in a continual agitation or accension of the particles of its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pabulum or fewel and perishing as fast as it is propagated so that fire is made fire and again ceaseth to be fire in every the shortest moment of time and when in the combustible matter there remain no more particles in which it may generate it self anew it instantly perishes Now continual Dispersion being the proper and visible effect of fire or flame the matter or fewel wherein it subsisteth cannot but be in continual flux or decay In like manner the Vital Heat of Animals subsisting by a continual accension of new spirits in the blood as that is passing through the Heart those vital spirits transmitted from thence through the arteries to the habit of the body no sooner arrive there but having warm'd and enliven'd the solid parts they immediately fly away and disperse themselves by insensible transpiration carrying along with them many watery vapors and perhaps some sulphureous exhalations Moreover there being in all the solid parts of the body certain mild sweet and balsamic spirits as it were affixt unto and concorporated with them 't is very probable that the Vital Spirits acting upon them also by way of exagitation by little and little dislodge them render them Volatil and at length wholly disperse them whereupon the minute particles in which they did reside become mortified and as excrements are excluded together with the exhalations of the blood And this I apprehend to be the reason and manner of the depraedation made upon the body by the Vital Heat Here no man will I hope exact from me an accurate computation of the daily expenses of this Vital Heat which like some Governors rules by exhausting If any should I might perhaps applaud his curiosity but should not be able to satisfie it For so great is the difference among men in respect of temperament diet age exercise the season of the year and various other circumstances that no definite calculation can be made of this dispense no not in those who keep to the strictest rules of an Ascetic life weighing themselves and their meat and drink as Cornaro is reported to have done daily We may indeed conjecture from the Static experiments of Sanctorius that the expense is great for instance if forty pounds of meat and drink be suppos'd sufficient to maintain a man of a middle stature sober and of good health for ten days and about twenty pounds be assign'd to the excrements voided by stool and urine in that time the other twenty pounds may be reasonably ascribed to insensible transpiration but still this is mere conjecture Let it then suffice that we certainly know the quantity of bloud and spirits daily exhausted by the Vital Heat that conserves life in us is very great and that the greatest part of the matter of insensible transpirations is the Vital Spirits which are continually generated and continually dispers'd How apt and powerful these Vital Spirits are by reason of their subtility and brisk motions to exagitate and disperse the more exsoluble particles of even the nerves fibres membranes and other tender and sensile parts may be in some measure collected from various diseases and symptoms that seem to arise from their various depravations or vicious qualities I shall not therefore goe much out of my way if I make a short Digression to recount a few of those painful and contumacious Maladies which are with good reason referrible to the vices of the Spirits rendring the tone of the nervous parts either more strict or more lax than it ought to be at least according to the doctrine of Prosper Alpinus not long since reviv'd and illustrated by Dr. Franc. Glisson whose name is Elogie sufficient If it happens that the Blood is too vinose i. e. too abundant in Spirits as in Good fellows commonly it is many times it induceth diseases depending upon Fluxion For being by the arteries protruded into the more tender parts with greater force and impetuosity than is fit it rather invades than cherishes them by that violence putting their unfixt particles into a flux And this Fluxion usually first invades such parts as being weaker than the rest are therefore more dispos'd to receive it If the prevailing Spirits of the bloud be not only Vinose but Saline also many times there insues the like Fluxion conjoin'd with a languor and laxity of the tone of the parts such as is alwayes observ'd in Catarrhs in moist Coughs in Ebriety great heaviness to sleep the running Gout c. And 't is remarkable that these Fluxions are usually so much the more fierce and vexations by how much the more infirm and yielding the nerves and fibres of the part invaded are because these want strength to make resistence by vigorous contraction of themselves whereas nerves naturally strong and tense somewhat repress and break the force of the bloud rushing in upon them Which is perhaps one if not the chief reason why men of firm and vigorous nerves are very seldom or never infested by the Gout If this resolving fluxion chance to be accompanied with a Fermentation of the bloud then commonly the evil consequent is a rheumatic arthritic or pleuritic Fevre On the contrary if the Spirits that have obtain'd dominion in the bloud be Sulphureous or oyly there follows a Fluxion causing a Constriction and shutting up of the invaded part For tho' the arteries poure out bloud abounding in impetuous Spirits and so cause a Fluxion yet notwithstanding those Spirits by reason of their oyliness neither easily pass through the habit of the parts as
the Saline do nor are dispers'd by insensible transpiration but remain shut up as in a close prison and striving for liberty raise great tumults and pains Hence are excited various Symptoms according to the various parts into which the Fluxion rusheth in particular if the Fluxion be determin'd upon the Gutts there follow grievous Colic pains if in the Stomach a dire inflation of it if upon the Limms that sore affect which Physicians generally call a Rheumatisme which is not as some have erroneously thought rain'd down from the head but proceeds only from sulphureous Spirits effused out of the arteries into the habit of the body and therein imprison'd their own oyliness making them unapt to transpire and their tumultuous distension of the parts conteining them causing acute pains Hence also come wandring Scorbutic pains Hypochondriac winds rumblings in the stomach and gutts Head-aches the Tooth-ake c. And all these evils are the more aggravated by how much the more firm and tense the nerves of the part affected are whereas in Saline fluxions the contrary happens tho they be no less pernicious in the end by relaxing fretting and as it were melting the tone of the parts affected Finally if the strength of the nerves and fibres be greater than the force of the bloud flowing in from the arteries in that case succeeds a Disease è diametro contrary to Fluxion viz. Obstruction and Infarction and for the most part transpiration hinder'd The manner how seems to be this The too rigid tension of the nerves and fibres in any part rendring the passage of the arterial bloud through it more difficult than is requisite to the circuition of it freely the thicker and more viscid parts thereof must of necessity stick in their passage and so produce Obstructions And this vice alwayes is the more intended by how much the more languid and sluggish the Vital Spirits are For when these are copious and vigorous they easily prevail over the light renitence or reluctance of the nerves and maugre their opposition carry on the bloud in its circuit but when they flagg and act but dully they yield to the opposition of the nerves and fibres and leave the grosser and more viscid parts of the bloud sticking in the passages In a Cachexy Dropsy Asthma Scorbute obstruction of the pipes of the Lungs tumors and imflammations of the viscera c. the nerves commonly are more strict or tense than they ought to be But if a Saline fluxion chance to be conjoyn'd with or to supervene upon such an excessive tension of the nerves it either wholly solves the disease or very much mitigates it at least Whereas on the contrary if while the nerves and fibres continue strong such a constriction of them be accompanied with a Sulphureous fluxion then it causes dismal tempests in the parts affected Convulsions Epileptic fits Apoplexie extreme difficulty of breathing Suffocation Hysteric and other the like passions Now if the Genealogie of these Fluxions here describ'd be consentaneous to reason and experience it doth not a little confirm what hath been deliver'd touching the depraedation of the more easily exsoluble substance of the parts by the Spirits of the bloud For tho' what happens in a praeternatural state of the body be not alwayes a good Argument of what is done in the natural state yet in this case considering that the motion of the bloud is the same and that the Spirits also continue Spirits in both states so that the whole difference consists only in this that in the fluxions alleged the Spirits are suppos'd to be only deprav'd with Saline or Sulphureous qualities not wholly alienated from their nature considering this I say the inference I have made is not ingenuine For to argue from the identity of the effect to the identity of the cause or è converso is no Paralogism And so I conclude this not impertinent digression ¶ FROM the causes and manner of the continual consumtion of substance in Animals we may opportunely proceed to an inquiry into the causes and manner of the continual Restauration of the same by way of Nutrition Of this Restauration the Efficient principle or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle calls it is certainly the very same with the Generant or Formative because as I said before Generation cannot be effected without Augmentation and Augmentation is Nutrition Not that I am of their opinion who hold that Life and Nutrition differ not in re but only in ratione for the Human Embryo perhaps is nourish't before the Empsychosis but that I conceive that Life consists in and depends upon a continual generation of the Vital Spirits out of the most subtil active and volatile parts of the bloud and that Nutrition consists in reparation or instauration of what is absumed by apposition and assimilation of consimilar or congenerous matter So that according to the distinct notions I have of these Twinns Life is maintain'd by Dispersion of the most spirituose parts of the bloud and Nutrition is on the contrary affected by apposition and assimilation of new matter The Material or constituent Principle I take to be a certain mild sweet and balsamic liquor analogous to the white of an Egg or at least the Colliquamentum out of which the Chick is formed For since all Animals are nourish'd with the same out of which they were at first made up according to that common Axiom iisdem nutrimur ex quibus constamus and that of Aristotle eadem materia est ex qua augetur animal ex qua constituitur primùm and since they are all corporated ex colliquamento we may well conclude that the Succus nutritius sive ultimum nutrimentum partium is in all qualities semblable to the Colliquamentum of the white of an Egg. Farre from the white of truth therefore are they who think that the parts of the body being in substance divers the parts of the Aliment also ought to be equally divers as if Nutrition were really nothing but selection and similar attraction of convenient aliment and that there were not requir'd in every single part a concoction assimilation apposition and transmutation of one matter common to all For first 't is a difficult question whether there be in nature any such thing as Attraction or not and to prove Similar Attraction is yet more difficult so that the very fundament of this opinion is merely precarious and then 't is most evident from what we have said of the constitution and augmentation of all parts of an Embryo ex colliquamento that the Aliment common to all parts is Similar not Heterogeneous it being the proper work of the Plastic power still remaining in every Animal as to form all the various parts out of the same Homogeneous matter at first so to augment and repair them all during life out of like matter by transforming that into the substance of every part which is indeed potentially all parts but actually none as out
it was so fram'd by Nature to be the principal instrument of the Peristaltic motion of the stomach as well as to corroborate and defend it The third or Inmost Membrane is remotely different from either of the other two For in substance 't is though not wholly nervose as most Anatomists have affirm'd yet much less fibrose and less tenacious or tough and consequently less extensible Which seems to be the reason why Nature has made it so much larger than either of the two coats that invest it that when by their compressive motion or contraction the cavity of the Ventricle is minorated this falls into many wrinkles or plaits and so remains till the Ventricle be again distended by repletion and then all the wrinkles disappear the largeness compensating the want of tenacity and the wrinkles making it capable of equal extension with its fellows without danger of rupture Moreover the inner surface of it is spongy or porose and unequal as being cover'd with a downy veil consisting of threads exremely fine and perpendicularly inserted into the coat resembling the right side of velvet or plush A singular artifice of Nature and such wherein she seems to have had more than a single aim For 1. This plushy lining serves to defend the coat from the injuries of solid and hard meats which otherwise might by their immediate contact offend and irritate it 2. It conduces somwhat to the firmer detention of the meat and not yet perfectly concocted Chyle which otherwise if the supersice of this coat were smooth and polite would easily slip down too soon 3. It helps to cover the extremities of the innumerable arteries and veins terminate in this coat and so prevents the cruentation of it 4. It makes way for the exsudation of humors brought thither with the bloud by the arteries For in Man and all Carnivorous Animals the Ventricle is alwayes found to be sinear'd all over within with a certain slimy or pituitose humor which sticks so fast to the inner or plushy surface of this Coat as if it were a kind of vegetable growing out of the pores of it Which Mucus or Phlegm tho' an Excrement in respect of the whole mass of blood from which it was by secretion separated is nevertheless of great use to the Ventricle into which it is excern'd and that in three considerable respects 1. By lining the concave side of this inmost membrane with its mucilagineous substance it serves to secure it the more from Cruentation For though the stomach of a dead man when invers'd doth not appear bloudy even after this Mucus hath been wiped or scrap'd off perhaps because the motion of the bloud is then ceas'd and the cold of death hath shut up the pores by which it might wooz out yet in the living this Mucus cannot be wholly purged away but cruentation will soon insue as is seen in the Dysenterie and superpurgations by violent and corrosive Medicaments in which cases bloudy stools happen and yet without the rupture of any vessel or exulceration of either Ventricle or Gutts 2. The same Mucus conduceth to render the inside of this coat more slippery so that it may more easily expell any offensive matter upward or downward as occasion requires 3. By growing acid or sowre it serves both to excite hunger and to facilitate the dissolution and fermentation of the meat and drink in the stomach Of this Mucus much more might here be said did I not foresee that I shall be obliged to resume it when I come to inquire into the actions and uses of the Stomach Meanwhile I must not omitt to observe that the Convex side of this Plushy lining of the inmost Membrane thereof is set thick with small Glandules which Dr. Willis conjectured to be there placed both to cover the mouths of the arteries and veins there terminated and to receive and separate some humor by way of percolation nor do I dislike that conjecture We are now arrived at the two last of the proper constituent parts of the Ventricle the Fibres and Parenchymata which will fully compensate our patience if we fix our thoughts awhile upon the consideration of them The various significations and more various Etymologies of the Latine word Fibra about which there has been no little hacking and slashing among Grammarians I willingly pass by and with Salmasius deriving it from the Aeolic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pro 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which according to the interpretation of Hesychius denotes a soft and slender thread take it according to the use of Anatomists to express a certain similar part nearly approaching to the nature of a nerve and continued to one but much more slender so that I am apt to believe it to be a single filament elonged from some nerve after its division into many threads each as fine as that spun by the Silk-worm if not finer The best description of it that I have hitherto read hath been given us by Dr. Glisson de ventric intestinis cap. 4. which I will therefore recite as worthy to be known by those who have not perused that most elaborate Book and to be revived in the memory of those who have A Fibre is saith he a body in figure like a thread slender tenacious tensil and irritable made of a spermatic matter and destined to some motion and strength 1. In figure like a thread i. e. oblong round and smooth 2. Slender as a Spiders thread 3. Tenacious i. e. tough or whose parts firmly cohaering are not easily broken 4. Tensil i. e. capable of being extended in length the latitude the while diminish'd and of being thickned in bredth the longitude the while abbreviated 5. Irritable i. e. such as may be by irritation excited to contract it self and is naturally apt to relax it self again when the irritation ceaseth 6. Made of a Spermatic matter i. e. if it be a naked or simple fibre such as those of all the Muscles but if stufft with any parenchyma perhaps then not made of only a spermatic matter and such are all the fibres of the Ventricle and Gutts 7. Designed for motion and strength because being of a tough consistence it cannot but add to the strength of a part and being capable of extension and contraction it must therefore be destined to motion This description though true and plain seems yet somwhat too narrow to comprehend the whole nature of Fibres generally consider'd Let us therefore enlarge it by subnecting a few lines more concerning the constitution uses action and passion of them 1. The Constitution of a Fibre is either insita or influens native or adventitious The Native is again Similar or Organical The Similar consisteth in a mattar fitly disposed in a just temper corpulency cohaerence of parts tensibility flexibility continuity hardness and softness The Matter is wholly Spermatic although sometimes it be stuff'd with a bloudy pulp as is observ'd in the fibres within the Ventricles of the heart
the threads in the same manner as this mucilaginous pulp fills up the interstices betwixt the fibres and so makes the membranes impervious Necessary it is to the augmentation and extenuation of the fibres themselves For the fibres of the Stomach although seldom or never liable to fatness are yet easily capable of plumpness and leanness In men sick of a Consumtion they are alwayes extenuated in fat men alwayes plump and thick But these mutations could not so easily happen if the fibres were not stuff'd with some pulp for all Parenchymata are easily melted a way by degrees but fibres not without great difficulty nor do I know any thing more apt to colliquate their substance and destroy their tone than Brandy and other corroding Spirits how highly soever extoll'd by Chymists that distill them We may see in men languishing of Hectic fevers and ulcers of the lungs the Tendons of the muscles remaining intire when the pulp of them is in the mean time almost wholly consumed Whence 't is evident that the fibres which are more easily obnoxious to augmentation and diminution than other solid parts have much of a pulpy substance in their composition 3. This pulp if softned and diluted with water is like a mucilage or gelly otherwise tenacious tensible and strong like paste so as to be impervious to winds and liquors though apt perhaps to imbibe the thinner and spirituose part of the Chyle Different from the Parenchyma of the bowels and from that of the Muscles also as being neither bloody but white and spermatic nor congested into a mass but spread abroad like plaister so as to bear extension and contraction together with the fibres part of it being stuff'd or cramm'd into the fibres the rest dawbed upon and betwixt them so as to fill up and plane their interstices 4. Besides which two Uses it seems to serve also to three others viz. to the safe conduct of the Venae Lacteae proceeding from the Stomach which probably have their roots in the parenchyma of the inmost tunic thereof where the small Glandules observ'd by Steno and Malpighius are seated to the separation of the mucus or pituita emortua from the bloud brought by the arteries into the coats of the Ventricle of which we shall more opportunely inquire when we come to the uses of the Stomach and lastly to make way for a larger current of blood to pass through the membranes of the Stomach than otherwise they and their pure fibres could through their substance transmitt For Fibres by how much more firm and tenacious they are than the Parenchyma is by so much more they resist the transition of the blood and therefore if here were no Parenchyma certainly the Ventricle would be irrigated with more slender streams of blood and consequently colder than it ought to be Whereas now no less than five conspicuous arteries discharge themselves into its coats Certain therefore it is that a more liberal afflux of bloud is requir'd to the constitution of the stomach than seems possible to be transmitted through the naked membrane and fibres without this pulp Having now at length finish'd I wish I might say perfected my survey of all visible Elements or constituent parts of the Ventricle I should proceed to the functions actions and uses of it But remembring that an empty Stomach hath no ears and considering that it would be double wrong to you should I at once starve both your bodies and your curiosity I choose rather here to break off the thread of my discourse than to weaken that of your life by detaining you longer from necessary refection ¶ PRAELECTIO III. Of the ACTIONS and USES of the VENTRICLE AFTER dinner sit a while is an old and good precept to conserve health Let us then if ye please now observe it And that we may repose without idleness let us calmly inquire into the method causes and manner of Digestion resuming the clew of our discourse where hunger and thirst brake it off when it had brought us to that place where we might most opportunely consider the ACTIONS and USES of the Ventricle whose admirable Structure and various Parts we had so particularly contemplated in order to our more accurate investigation of them In this disquisition Nature her self hath plainly mark'd out the steps wherein we are to tread having assign'd to the Ventricle eight distinct operations or actions to be perform'd in order successively These Actions are 1. Hunger 2. Thirst 3. The Peristaltic motion 4. Reception 5. Retention 6. Concoction 7. Secretion 8. Expulsion each of which hath a peculiar Faculty respondent to it for every action in specie distinct necessarily implies a distinct power But because each distinct faculty and the action respondent to it are though in reason different yet in reality one and the same thing I shall not treat of them separately but describe them together under the more familiar name of action the rather because if we can be so lucky to find out the true reason of any one operation here specified we need search no farther to know the nature of the faculty to which it belongs all mechanical operations conducting our understanding to the knowledge of the proper powers by which they are perform'd Following then the order of Nature in examining these Actions I begin from the first viz. HUNGER Among the many differences betwixt Plants and Animals this is not the least remarkable that Plants are fixt by their roots which serve them also instead of mouth and stomach in the earth so that they remove not from their places in quest of nourishment Unde facundiss noster Entius in Antidiatribae pag. 5. Plantae inquit non sunt quidem gressiles sed humo affixae secum continuè habitant quòd pluviâ solùm ac rore tenuissimo scilicet victu pascantur Ideoque cùm ad rivulos potatum ire nequeant expansis veluti brachiis facundos imbres à Jove pluvio implorant But Animals having their Stomach within their bodies and sucking no juice immediately from the earth are therefore forced to change their stations and range from place to place to find food convenient for their sustenance And because the capacity of their Ventricles and Gutts is not so great as at once to contain a quantity of food sufficient to maintain life for many dayes together necessary it is they should often be recruited by eating fresh aliment To obtain which they must seek it and to oblige them to seek it they must be excited and urged by somthing within them to that quest and to that excitation is requir'd an internal goad as it were and that a sharp one too and irresistible the inevitable necessity of their nutrition consider'd otherwise they would neglect to supply themselves in due time with new sustenance and consequently soon pine away and perish Now the goad that compells them to feed is Hunger and Thirst the one urges them to seek meat the other drink both by
from but in some sort opposite to the later For the present object is displeasing and troublesom to the stomach the absent grateful and when present satisfactory 1. The Absent object proper to hunger I conceive with our most excellent Dr. Glisson to be that nutritive Succulencie or juiciness which all wholsom meats contain in them more or less and which being alterable is apt to be changed into Chyle viz. a certain substance or matter mild tender easily mutable abounding in sweet and fixt spirits not destitute of fatness temper'd with a due portion of earth and condited with some salt of its own These are the qualities of that matter which I call succulent and nutritive and which I hold to be the proper absent object of the faculty of feeling hunger For all aliments contain in them copious spirits and those for the most part fixt which the stomach by inducing fermentation upon them excites and brings to a certain moderate fluor that they may more commodiously be thence transmitted into the milky veins and become nourishment partly to the bloud and vital spirits partly to the spermatic and solid parts of the body They all contein also some fat more or less in them which fat as the Oracle of experience teacheth is highly profitable to appease the importunity of hunger and desirable for nourishment In fine they all contein also somwhat of salt and somwhat of an earthy substance and without the alloy of these two ingredients neither could the spirits conserve their fixation nor the fat its sweetness Now this nutritive Succulency the proper object of hunger is said to be absent not that it is perpetually so or that it is not perceiv'd when it is present but only because in the principal action of the Faculty namely hunger from which the whole is denominated it is really absent Besides the utility of things is better understood by the want than by the full fruition of them nor should we take notice that the stomach perceives the meat contain'd in it and is therewith appeas'd and satiated unless we were somtimes urged and molested by hunger upon the want of meat However most certain it is that this Object when present is alwayes perceiv'd by the stomach with complacency and delight and when absent is much more esteem'd and therefore the object in hunger is justly call'd absent and the whole Faculty as justly defined Sense of hunger and Appetite of meat 2. The Praesent object is that offensive and gnawing kind of pain that molesteth the Stomach whensoever it wants and craves meat The formal Reason of this ingrateful sensation seems not to consist as our Master Galen and the whole Schole of Physicians ever since his dayes have taught in a certain Suction for neither can any of the constituent parts of the Ventricle cause any such motion in it nor can the Ventricle suck it self because no natural Agent can do an action displeasing to it self but to arise merely from Acid humors contain'd in the cavity of the stomach which by astriction asperity rosion and fretting of the inmost membrane of the Stomach as if they endeavor'd to draw forth a tincture from it cause it to feel a kind of Vellication or gnawing and to complain to the imagination of the want of that mild sweet and nutritive Succulency that is requisite to mitigate and extinguish that offensive Vellication and to induce complacency in the room of it And these Acid humors in this manner causing a sense of Vellication in the Ventricle seem to be partly the reliques of meat still remaining in the cavity thereof partly the soure Phlegm brought with the arterial bloud into the inmost tunic of it and there separated of both which we shall have occasion ere long to speak more opportunely Mean while having thus concisely proposed to your more judicious examen what seem'd to me most probable concerning the double object of Hunger I haste to the Constitutions of the Stomach in which that offensive sense of want of meat is founded These CONSTITUTIONS are according to the division of the parts of the Ventricle mentioned in my first Lecture either common or proper The Common are 1. The Temperament 2. The firm Tone 3. The Cavity 4. The Asperity of the inmost coat 5. The acute Sensation and 6. The Porose or spongy substance of the same inmost coat of the Ventricle Among these the first place is due to the Temper of the Stomach upon the justice of which the natural vigor of this Faculty of craving meat so necessarily depends that if but the influent temper to praetermitt the insite or native happen to be deficient or depraved the appetite soon comes to be impaired or vitiated accordingly Of this we have an eminent instance in a fever which no sooner invades than it dejects all appetite of meat inducing great thirst in the room of it and the reason seems to be this that by the febrile heat of the bloud brought into the inmost tunic of the stomach by the arteries the acid ferment therein lodged is destroyed For Acids ye know are apt to extinguish thirst and all inflammations of the bloud augment it by overcoming their acidity The second is due to the firm Tone of the membranes and fibres of the Ventricle For if this Eutonia of the whole organ be any way vitiated the appetite of necessity more or less languisheth flaggs and vades because the stomach having its fibres relaxed can neither contract it self enough to embrace the food it receives nor be duely sensible of the complacency thence resulting For both the relaxation and the infirm cohaerence of the tone of any part very much diminish the vigor of it and induce sluggishness and stupidity instead of it How requisite to the excitation of a good appetite the firmness of the tone of the stomach is may be collected not only from the experience of great Drinkers who by excessive distension of the coats by continual soaking the fibres and by diluting and rinsing away the Acidum esurinum as Helmont calls it of the stomach have little or no appetite to wholesom and nutritive meats and at length so ruinc the tone of the stomach that they become insensible of hunger and dye languishing most commonly of Dropsies some of the Lymphaeducts being broken in their bellies or Consumptions from want of nourishment but also from our own observation of the diminution of our hunger in the heats of Summer and the reviving of it in Winter The reason of which remarkable alteration and vicissitude seems to consist in this that in the Summer the whole body being as it were dissolved and enervated by immoderate heat and the spirits continually exhausted by sweats and profuse transpiration the tone of all parts becomes softer and more lax than it ought to be in the state of health and consequently the appetite of the stomach to solid meat dwindles into thirst but in Winter when all parts are constringed and render'd
able after all their pains and taedious processes to draw any thing from thence but a certain salt spirit not much different from the spirits of Urine of Harts-horn or of Sal Ammoniac unless that perhaps it was somwhat more subtile less acrimonious and less ingrate And certain therefore it is as I before affirm'd that whatsoever of Acid salt hath not been actually converted into salt in the stomach is soon after when the Chyle arrives at the Gutts changed into Animal Salt no such thing as Vegetable Salt being to be found in any part of any living creature ¶ Having now at length with more of haste perhaps than of satisfaction to my Auditors run through all the general Differences of Aliments to be concocted and all the various Alterations they undergo in the stomach before they can be brought to the perfection of good and profitable Chyle we come next to the Third Head of our praesent Disquisition viz. the CAUSES of those Alterations WHICH though many and of various kinds may nevertheless be commodiously enough reduced to two general Classes or Orders viz. such as are Foreign or Extra-advenient to and such as are Indigenary or Inbred in the stomach To the First classis belong all things that any way conduce to the promotion of Concoction either by praevious Alteration of the Aliments or by fortifying the stomach Of those that remotely conduce to the work of Concoction only by Praeparation of the food some correct the Crudity of it by the help of fire namely by boyling roasting frying or baking others render it more mild and tender by maceration in brines lixivia's pickles vinegre and the like others make the Aliments more familiar by way of hastning their Maturation and others again intenerate and dispose them to dissolution by mixture of some wholsom and agreeable Ferment Where it may be observed that whatsoever Aliments whether solid as bread or liquid as wine beer ale hydromel c. that have undergone Fermentation before they are receiv'd into the stomach invite other Aliments with which they are therein commixt to fermentation Hence it is that good wine strong beer vinegre bread made light by leaven and the like help very much to digestion Those that do so by corroboration of the stomach are Peptic or Digestive Remedies as mints roses wormwood Aromatics c. But all these of both sorts being only Accessories and forein require not to be farther prosecuted in this place The Inbred Causes of Concoction are either Instruments generated in the stomach or the Constitutions of the stomach in which the Faculty of Concocting is founded 1. The Instruments are the Ferments contein'd in the stomach four in number whereof two are Principal and the other two only Adjuvant The Adjuvant or less powerful are the Humor Salivalis and the Acid Phlegm of the stomach both which help somwhat toward the inteneration of the meat But because they help but little in comparison of the other two I content my self with the bare mention of them en passant The More powerful are the Acid reliques of the former meal which tho' more efficacious than both the Adjuvant ferments are yet in comparison of the grand one less considerable and therefore I may well be excused if I pass them also over in silence and the proper Ferment of the stomach which being the Principal instrument of Concoction deserves to be particularly consider'd The origin and nature of this admirable dissolving Ferment the only true Alkahest in nature having been first investigated not many years past by the great industry of the learned and judicious Moebius and professedly proved by convincing experiments and observations in a prolix dissertation conteined in his Book de Fundament Medicinae and since that time much illustrated by our happy Dr. Glisson de ventric intestin cap. 20. all that remains for me to do concerning it is only to recall to your memory the most remarkable heads of those things ye have read in those discourses by giving you a Breviary of them This therefore I will do and in as few words as can with reason be expected This Ferment then is nothing else but the spirituose and saline effluvia stirr'd up by the vital motion of the arterial bloud effused out of the arteries into the cavity of the stomach and gutts but chiefly of the stomach and therein condensed again into a sharp penetrating and dissolving liquor apt to dissolve the solid meat and to cause such a benign fermentation as tends not to volatilization but only to Fusion of the same and in fine acting upon it not by open force or violent invasion but after the manner of Contagiose ferments rather by clancular insinuation and mixing it self first with the saline and spirituose parts and then with the grosser and less exsoluble In this concise Abridgement I have I confess omitted two Positions both zealously asserted by the later of these two excellent Authors out of whose doctrine I abstracted it One is that that part of the blood which is by the Coeliac and two Mesenteric arteries dispensed to the stomach and gutts chiefly to the inmost coat of them is somewhat more salt and sharp than the blood distributed to other parts of the body The Other is that the Saline and spirituose parts of the Meat newly admitted into the stomach perceiving that they are ill lodg'd and that the Ferment with which they there meet is really semblable or like to them and with all more noble as retaining some reliques of vitality with which it had so lately been ennobled while it pass'd through the heart and arteries do easily admit embrace and conjoyn themselves with it But I declare withal that I omitted these Positions not from inadvertency nor for brevity fake but only because I doubt of the verity of them For the first supposes Similar Attraction or mutual coition of things alike ob similitudinem naturae which yet I do not find my self obliged to grant And the other depends upon the Hypothesis of Natural Perception which is not yet establish'd beyond disputation However it seems to me sufficiently probable that this dissolving Ferment is peculiar to and generated in the stomach because nothing like it is to be found in any other part of the whole body that to the constitution of it is required a concurse of both salt and sulphureous spirits such are the vital spirits themselves but chiefly of Salt than which nothing is more sharp penetrating and dissolving and that therefore it may be call'd as Moebius named it Sal spiritibus impragnatum acre ac pungens or as Dr. Glisson Fermentum Ventriculi fusorium feu principale coctionis instrumentum because it doth not only efficaciously dissolve the solid parts of the food but also give it the first degree of Assiimilation to the nature of the Animal out of whose blood the ferment it self is derived Which may be one reason why the same Aliment receives a divers praeparation in
if I subjoyn a brief Therapeutic Corollary pertinent to my precedent discourse and useful to Younger Students in Medicine for whose instruction chiefly it was that the wise and prudent Authors of the Statutes of this our so worthily renowned Colledge first instituted and ordained Anatomic Lectures to be therein read by the learned Fellows thereof whensoever it should seem fit to the venerable President I will therefore do my devoir to explicate wherein chiefly consists that Pepasmus or Concoction of crude Humors which Nature and her great Minister Hippocrates require to their opportune Evacuation in putrid Fevers and by what kinds of Remedies the same may be best assisted and advanced For these things being well understood will afford much of Light toward the direction of the younger Sons of Art in the true and most rational method of curing Fevers in which no error can be little no caution too great I begin from that never to be forgotten precept of the Divine old Man afore recited 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Concocta medicamento purgare oportet ac movere non cruda neque ineunte morbo nisi materia turgeat To which Seneca seems to have had respect when he said in morbis nihil est magis periculosum quà m immatura medicina and Livy when he affirmed Medicos plus interdum quiete quà m movendo agendo proficere The Concoction or digestion here meant is by Hippocrates expressed sometimes by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to contradistinguish it from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies the digestion of Aliment as I have before advertised and according to the general Notion of all learned Physicians Antient and Modern it is eorum quae sunt in corpore praeter naturam ad moderatam secuturae expulsioni percommodam temperiem deductio In which Sense Duretus the most faithful interpreter of the Oracle of Cous expounds that place Lib. 1. Epidem Anutii Foesii edit Pag. 365. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 eorum quae exeunt concoctiones spectandas esse Upon which Galen copiously commenting gives this memorable definition of the thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nempe coctio est quaedam eorum quoe sunt praeter naturam morbi maturatio And most rightly For the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was properly used by the Graecians to express the ripeness of the Fruits of Trees by which they are advanced from the State of Crudeness or immaturity to that of maturity or perfection and metaphorically to signify that maturity of the matter of Diseases which Nature by degrees induces in order to the seasonable and beneficial expulsion of it when she attempts a Crisis by ways most convenient Not that this Maturation is always to be expected in acute Diseases For we are to remember there are two sorts of Crudity of Causes apt to induce Fevers one capable of being brought to moderation and ripeness as that of the Blood in a Phlegmon of the phlegm in a Quotidian of Choler in a Tertian c. Another incapable of correction and mitigation as the Febrile Ferment that causes Malignant and Pestilential Fevers which being by its seminal Nature and unalterable Form pernicious to the very principles of Life in Man is sometimes by the force of Nature expelled and utterly exterminated out of the Body but never can be so changed and brought into subjection as to be made less hostile to the vital Spirits that conserve the Blood And therefore in such Fevers wise Physicians are not wont to stay expecting Maturation of the Poyson mixt with and fermenting the Blood in the mean time losing the Opportunities of relieving Nature by proper Alexiterial and Sudorific remedies To come then to the Marrow of the Question proposed Considering 1 That the Crudity of Humors inducing Fevers simply putrid consisteth only in this that the Spirits lodged in them are not sufficiently educed excited and prepared so as to be fit to promote the vital mication of the Blood 2 that all Fevers are essentially founded in the fermentation of the Blood and 3 That the vital Motion or Heat of the Blood is always more or less impeded and perturbed and often utterly extinguisht by that Fermentation considering these things I say t is not difficult thence to infer that the Pepasmus or Concoction requisite in all Fevers simply putrid i. e. not Malignant must consist chiefly in three things è diametro opposite to those now mentioned namely 1 In the Dissipation and Consumption of the crude Spirits mixt with the Blood 2 In the Moderation of the Fermentation begun and 3 In the Conservation and Corroboration of the vital Powers And these certainly are the three principal Scopes to which a Physician ought to direct his Counsels in the cure of putrid Fevers and which for their great importance require to be singly explain'd To the first of these principal Scopes viz. the Dissipation and absumption of crude Spirits and requisite eventilation of the Blood by them inquinated we may most commodiously attain by fasting at least by a thin Diet by Remedies extenuating acid predatory and conducing to leanness by Diaphoretics Sudorifics and by letting of Blood For 1 Fasting tends directly to dissipation of the crude Spirits because the Spirits if not by intervals recruited out of new supplies of Aliment must necessarily be soon exhausted and resolved into Air. But no mortal being able long to abstain from all sorts of Meat and Drink or to endure absolute fasting we are therefore compell'd to substitute a thin and spare Diet in the place of strict abstinence for the most part thin Broths made of things moystning cooling not prone to corruption subacid and of easie digestion To these 2 are added moderate and grateful Acids apt to attenuate resolve and dissipate the Crudities congested in the habit of the Parts and therefore predatory 3 Diaphoretics which promoting insensible Transpiration must conduce to the dispersion and exhalation of the same Crudities 4 Sudorifics which do the same thing but by a more expedite and conspicuous operation at once rendring the Crudities fluxile and exciting Nature to drive them forth by Sweat For Medicaments of this Family by the tenuity and mobility of their Particles penetrate the inmost Recesses and slenderest Pores of the Body cut attenuate and rarefie Humors into Vapors and irritate the Parts to expel them together with the Serum of the Blood in the form of Sweat But in the use of these Hidrotic Medicaments great circumspection is required lest the matter of the Fever being not yet mature and prepared for this evacuation be both importunely and with too much Violence exagitated to farther corruption of the Blood and increase of the Fermentation So that they cannot be safely administerd to impure Bodies in the beginning nor indeed in the augment until certain Signs of some Concoction have been observed 5 Letting forth of Blood by opening a Vein which evidently detracts part of the Crude Matter
to be educed are obstructed by any vitiose matter cramm'd into them For remedies of this Classis by reason of the great tenuity acuteness and agility of their Particles penetrating into the smallest Vessels and Pores and attenuating viscid and tenacious humours therein sticking open all passages in the Body No wonder then if by rendring the clammy matter of Fevers more thin fluid and more obedient to nature endeavouring upon irritation by Purgers to expel it they conduce mightily to the more facile and more successful operation of Purges Nevertheless we are to advert that not all sorts of humours are to be made fluxil before any be exterminated by artificial purgation but that we are in pertinacious obstructions of the Viscera to act with Aperients and gentle Cathartics by turns For as there are degrees of Concoction so likewise ought there to be degrees of evacuation and so soon as any part of the peccant matter is concocted and prepared we must attempt to carry it off to the end that nature being thereby exonerated of part of her Load may with more facility digest the Remainder at least when we perceive her to be oppressed by too great weight Of Aperients some are hot which ought to be administred to Men of robust Bodies and cold complexion and such as labour of inveterate Oppilations some cold which are proper for persons of hot constitutions and prone to abound with Biliose or Choleric Humours others Temperate and therefore most convenient to tender soft delicate and crazy Bodies But these three sorts being judiciously contemperate mutually refract each the others qualities so as to reduce them to mediocrity Other differences of Aperients there are which I must lightly touch Some remove Oppilations by attenuating simply without the least of Astriction as the five opening Roots the Bark of Tamarise and of the Roots of Capers the Leaves of Maiden hair Hearts tongue Ceterach and Fern Roots c. Others both open and moderately bind as Endive Cichory Agrimony Rhubarb Sage c. Others again are endowed with an aperitive faculty but are withal vehemently astringent as Steel which hath no fellow Now as to the seasonable use of these differences in the beginning Aperients without Astriction are most convenient because they best dispose the humours to fluxility and clear the passages yet are they to be prescribed with this caution that the tone of the parts be not by the importune use of them dissolved or irritated to a cruentation The safer way therefore is to mix with them one or two of the second Tribe that have somewhat of Astriction in them Aperients moderately astringent are indeed in themselves most safe but they are given with best success after a general Evacuation And more vehement Astringents are to be kept in reserve to finish the cure by restoring the weakned parts to their pristine tone and vigor But is it not plainly dissonant to reason ye will say that the same remedies should be at once both Aperient and Astringent I answer therefore with Doctor Glisson that Aperients and Astringents are not directly opposite each to the others For the contraries to Aperients are Obstruents and to Astringents Laxants Besides in a Cachexy and Dropsie which either proceed from or are commonly accompanied with great Obstructions the natural tone of the parts is always relax'd more or less It must be confessed indeed that in those maladies the tension of the Nerves is for the most part too great by reason of their continual irritation by vitiose humours but nevertheless it cannot be denied that their natural tone is less firm than it ought to be If therefore Obstruction may consist with Laxity why may not Deoppilation as well consist with Astriction And thus have I run over the three principal things praerequisite to Evacuation in putrid Fevers viz correction of the peccant matter conservation of the vital Mication of the Blood and permeability of the ways It remains only that I adjust what hath been said to a certain Rule of Hippocrates that seems to render it doubtful The precept is this Aphor. 29. lib. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ineuntibus morbis si quid movendum videatur move Which some perhaps may think plainly repugnant to the former Aphorism upon the explication whereof I have so long insisted To reconcile therefore these two equally true Aphorisms I must acknowledge that it is not always requisite to expect a Pepasmus or maturation of the Morbific Matter in Fevers simply putrid For there are various cases in which whether they happen to be single or concurrent the counsel of this latter Aphorism is to be preferred to that of the former And all these Cases may be reduced to the number of five The FIRST is when any vitiose humor either by its abundance or irritating quality or motion doth molest the patient in the first region of the Body that is in the Stomach or Guts or Pancreas or Liver c. which requires to be speedily expelled upward or downward For 't is not to be doubted but that a Physician may and ought in this case to relieve molested nature as soon as is possible by carrying off the irrequiet humor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by ways most convenient And by the Oracle of frequent experience we are taught that not only intermittent but continual Fevers also are much diminished if not totally eradicated by safe Vomits or Purges administred in the beginning For the fovent cause being taken away the proxime cause is much more easily discussed which seems not to be any humor stagnating or congested either in the Viscera themselves or in their Confines as hath been already shewn but floating in the Mass of Blood within the Arteries and Veins This therefore is not to be attempted by any purging Medicament until Concoction hath preceded and the latter Aphorism advising Purgation in the beginning of putrid Fevers is restrained to crude humors contained in the first Region of the Body nor doth it respect the times of Diseases so much as the strength of the sick which is very rarely exhausted in the beginning according to the judgment of Galen libr. ad Thrasybulum cap. 38. who gives this reason of the Aphorism Quòd natura adhuc satis valida existens detractâ oneris quo premitur parte quod reliquum est faciliùs ferre citiusque concoquendo mitigare possit Hence it is that not only Glysters that rinse the Guts but gentle Solutives also such as may without any great tumult or commotion carry off any vitiose humor lodged in primis viis are commended by the most experienced Physicians in the beginning of putrid Fevers The SECOND Case is when any matter incapable of mitigation by Concoction begins to shew its Turgescence i. e. either from its abundance or from its malign quality flying from place to place induceth a frequent mutation or shifting of Symptoms all which Hippocrates comprehended in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies
Brain can ye name which hath not been referred to their Vices either to their defect or excess to their stupidity and sluggishness or their fury and tumults to their interception or too copiose and impetuose Influx to their fixation or incessant exagitation to their depravation by exotique and inconvenient Mixtures to their dissipation by Opiates and Narcoticks or to some other of a thousand accidents to which they are supposed to be Obnoxious Nay some have gone yet much farther and were it not-indecent to divert to Romantic Writings I could quote an Author of no small Fame who hath not many Years past enrich'd the Commonwealth of Philosophy with a whole Legend of the Empire of Animal Spirits their Laws and Constitutions politick their quickness of perception presagition of Dangers Passions of Love Anger Hate their Seditions Tumults Insurrections military Rangings Sallies Excursions Combates Incampings Marches and Countermarches Explosions or Fireings Retreats in order confused Flights and infinite other admirable things such as I for my part should not have had Wit enough to ascribe to any but Reasonable Creatures Nor shall I blush to confess that when I was reading this Fanciful Book I could not but recall to mind many of the Witty Fictions of Lucian verar. historiarum Lib. 1. concerning the Militia and adventures of his Hippogypi Lachanopteri Cencroboli Scorodomachi Psyllotoxotae Anemodromi Struthobalani Nubecentauri Aeroculices Solarii Lunarii Nephelococcygians and other chimerical Nations by him in Drollery described and all the pleasant Dreams of a certain great Lady recounted in her most delightful Histories of the Blazing World and of the Kingdoms of Fayries in ever Mans Brain though I at the same time considered that Lucian and the Lady had written only in Jest to exercise their Wit but the other in serious earnest and with design to reform the State of Physic by new discoveries So true is that saying of a late ingenious Writer Ubi semel occupatum ingenium est novis Hypothesibus licet solis innitantur conjecturis in infinitam conceptuum libertatem se diffundit ne disputare quidem cum rei veritate amplius sustinet Tam irrequieto exultante impetu stimulat in ulteriora voluptas gloriosa And yet notwithstanding after all our speciose discourses of these Emissaries of the Soul Animal Spirits we are distracted by various Opinions concerning them still anxiously inquiring of what matter in what place and how they are generated what are their Qualities Motions Ways and Manner of acting and in fine uncertain whether they be real Creatures of Nature or only the Idols of human Imagination Risum teneatis amici an lachrymas Certè res est hand perfunctoriè lugenda Some have affirmed that the Fluid contained in the Pores and Fibres of the Nerves is the more subtil part of the Blood separated and sublimed in the Brain giving it the noble Name of Spirits but they have not yet by certain reasons or Experiments taught us to which of all the Fluids that are known to us that is like Others therefore proceeding somewhat farther pronounce that these Spirits consist of Saline and Sulphureous Particles highly analogous to the Spirits of Wine But this is to feed our curiosity with fine Words that signifie little of certainty True it is indeed that upon drinking a little Glass of Spirit of Wine we find our Strength suddainly recruited but whether from the Humor we call Spirit or from that other Matter that makes that Spirit Fluid or is perhaps for some other reason joyned to it who hitherto has determined Besides the animal Spirits if any such there be seem to be so so far remote from the subtility Acrimony and volatility of Spirit of Wine that we want not just reasons to convince us they are nor volatile nor actually Rarefied into Exhalations nor acrimonious Not Volatil because if they were such certainly they would offend and trouble the Brain as may be inferred from the Lassitude Headach giddiness and other Symptoms that commonly invade Men next Morning after a Debauch with Wine all which come from the volatile Spirits of the Wine Not actual Exhalations because in that State being mixt with other Humors of the Body they would produce Bubles or Froth or cause also an inflation of the Parts containing them neither of which is to be endured Not Acrimonious pungent or offensive by asperity of their Particles because if such they would continually irritate prick and corrode the Brain and Nerves and necessarily force them into Convulsions and other tumultuose Motions I add that they are not as Fr. Sylvtus imagined them to be apt to Ferment because if such they could not but fret and dissolve the soft and tender Substance of the Brain and the Pith of the Nerves By these and other Reasons induced our most excellent Dr. Glisson de Ventric and Intestin Cap. 8. num 7. formed his animal Spirits of a constitution exempt from all these inconvenient Qualities He describes them to be Mild Placid Sedate Fixt Sweet Nutritive Corroborating and apt to consolidate and in all these respects exactly like the Spirits conteined in the white of an Egg. Their Subject he held to be the true Succus Nutritius distributed from the Brain through the Nerves to all spermatick Parts which he would have to be generated only in the Brain corticem inter medullam by way of Secretion and that the matter of which they are in that manner generated is the more mild and spermatic part of the Blood the acrimonious and more elabourated Part being reduced thence by the Veins for that purpose perhaps distributed into the Cortex of the Brain concluding that the select part is changed into animal Spirits not by sublimation or meteorization as all others held before but by mitigation refrigeration and Whitening So that in fine if their Nature agree with this Character I do not see by what right they can be called Spirits according to the common notion Men have of all things known by that Name In so dense a Mist of our understanding in so great and irreconcilable a dissention of Opinions concerning the matter generation and qualities of animal Spirits how shall we discern the truth Whom can ye give me so sagacious so happy above all other Mortals in explicating the Secrets of the Oeconomy of mans Brain as to be able by clearly defining what they are whence they proceed and how they are generated to put an end to the Dispute For till this be done we shall still be to seek how they can conduce to invigorate the Nerves and Muscles in voluntary Motion In the mean time we can be certain only of this that so great a War of Opinions among the Princes of Phylosophy is a strong Argument that the thing about which they contend is not yet sufficiently understood Equally uncertain it is by what kind of Motion these invisible Emissaries are transmitted from the Brain through the Nerves whether they fly swiftly or
may be inferr'd from hence that there are some perfect Muscles particularly those of the Forehead the Temples Bladder the fundament c. In the composition of which neither Tendon nor Ligament is to be found But because there is in some parts to be moved by reason of their greater Gravity a greater resistance to Motion than the musculous Flesh in respect of its softness and tenderness is of itself able to overcome chiefly in some positions therefore ought there to be an addition of some stronger and tougher Substance which being connected or united to the Flesh of the Muscle may both corroborate the same and more firmly conjoyn it to the Bones so as to inable it to overpower that resistance Hence it is that some Muscles especially such as are destined to bear great stress in surmounting the weight of great Members or in strong Motions are furnished with Ligaments as well for their better firmation to the Bones as for augmentation of their strength All which Galen de usu partium lib. 12. cap. 2. de motu muscul lib. 1. cap. 2. intimates in these few words Vinculo enim tuto quodam opus erat musculis cum osse ab ipsis movendo nec erat aliud ad hoc aptius Ligamento But this necessity not extending to all Muscles and a ligament being of it self immoveable and insensible and the Nerves being in respect of the softness and laxity of their Substance not sufficiently strong to pull great and heavy Bones without some accession of strength it was requisite there should be of both those parts composed a Third that might be firmer and stronger than a Nerve but softer and weaker than a Ligament Such is a Tendon which in Sense and Aptitude to Motion much exceed's a ligament and in strength a Nerve and is therefore made a part of many Muscles I say of many Muscles not of all because some have no need of Tendons as the Muscles of the Tongue of the Testicles of the Penis Lipps Forehead and all Sphincters but those only that are framed for Motions either strong or continual Those that were destined to the motion of Bones do all end in Tendons greater or less and are inserted not into the Syntax or conjunction of two Bones nor into the end of the same Bone from which they arise but near to the Head of another which they are to move Those which are to be kept long in Motion have likewise need of Tendons both to corroborate and facilitate their Motions as is most evident in the Muscles of the Eye all which are furnished with Tendons Hence we come to understand why Tendons are by Nature conferr'd upon all Muscles designed to perform strong Motions in Hexion in extension and in that which holding a part in a stiff and steady Posture is termed Motus Tonicus as in the Arms and Leggs and in the Back for erection of the Spine c. and why other Muscles are made up without Tendons being as in their Originals so likewise in their ends only Fibrose That these four parts of a Muscle namely Flesh Nerve Ligament and Tendon might not want either Covering or Combination Nature has providently invested and bound them together with a proper Membrane or Coat which seems to have these two farther Uses to cause Muscles touching or incumbent upon each other to slip up and down smoothly easily and without interfering and to unite the force of all the Fibres when they act And finally because the whole Organ requires to be continually supplied with Life as being Pars Corporis Vivens therefore is it copiously furnished with Arteries and Veins those to bring in Blood by whose vital Heat all parts are impregnated with influent Life these to return the same Blood to the Heart after it hath performed that Office And this may be sufficient to explain the Constitution of a Muscle upon which if we reflect we may conveniently enough define a Muscle to be an organical part of an Animal participant of Life composed always of Flesh and a Nerve and many times also of a Tendon and Ligament covered with its proper Membrane and so framed to be the proxime instrument of voluntary Motion ¶ As for the SECOND general to be considered namely the DIFFERENCES observed among various Muscles these are many as being desumed from their diversity in Substance Quantity Figure Position Origination Insertion Parts Actions and Uses all which I will run over lightly In respect of Substance some Muscles are mostly Carnose as all the Sphincters the Muscles of the Tongue c. others mostly nervose or membraneous as the fascia lata abducing the Tibia the Quadratus call'd by Galen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 musculosa expansio by others Distortor oris because it is first contracted involuntarily in that Convulsion named Spasmus Cynicus and some others In respect of Quantity which comprehends all the three dimensions of Longitude Latitude and Profundity some are Long as the Rectus abdominis the Longissimus dorsi the Sartorius in the Thigh c. Others short as the Pyramidales in the bottom of the Belly Surrogates of the oblique ascendent Muscles and by a peculiar right conducing to compression of the Bladder of Urine when we make Water Others broad as the Oblique and Transverse Muscles of the Abdomen the Latissimus dorsi depressing the Arm c. Others narrow as those of the Fingers and Toes Others thick and bulky as the two Vasti of the Thigh the Glutei of the Buttocks c. Others thin and slender as the Gracilis bending the Legg c. In respect of Figure some are Triangular some Square some Pentagonal some Pyramidal some Round some of other Shapes as is exemplified in the Deltoides Rhomboides Scalenus Trapezius c. In respect of the Position or course of their Fibres some are Oblique some Transverse some above some below some before some behind some on the Right others on the Left Side Where we may observe in the general that all oblique Muscles serve to oblique Motions all Right to direct flection or extension all internal to flection all External to extention In respect of their Origination some arise from Bones and that either from the Heads of them as most of the greater Muscles do or a little below or from some Glene some Sinus or small cavity in the Bone some only from one Bone some from two or three others from Cartilages or Gristles as the Muscles proper to the Larynx others from the Membrane inshrouding the Tendons as the Musculi Vermiculares sive I umbricales in the Hands and Feet and others again from other Parts as the Sphincters In respect of their Insertion some are inserted into Bones some into Cartilages as the Muscles of the Eyelids and of the Larynx others into a Membrane as the Muscles moving the Eye others into the Skin as those of the Lips some arising from divers parts are inserted into one and on the contrary others single in